 Despite relentless propaganda and juicy threats of impending arrests, a new poll of Americans shows the January 6th "insurrection" hearings are not shifting any opinions on the event. Also today, US warns starving Africa not to buy food from Russia. And...Biden gets boost in polls! Don't miss today's Liberty Report:New Poll: Americans Unmoved By Jan. 6th Hearings Click on the headline to read the full story from
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 Secret service outside Mar-a-Lago Monday [The Justice Department] must immediately explain the reason for its raid and it must be more than a search for inconsequential archives, or it will be viewed as a political tactic and undermine any future credible investigation and legitimacy of January 6 investigations. — Former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo Headline from Politics Insider this morning: Feds likely obtained ‘pulverizing’ amount of evidence ahead of searching Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, legal experts say. Pulverizing! Hold that thought. We’ve reached the stage of American history where everything we see on the news must first be understood as political theater. In other words, the messaging layer of news now almost always dominates the factual narrative, with the latter often reported so unreliably as to be meaningless anyway. Yesterday’s sensational tale of the FBI raiding the Mar-a-Lago home of former president Donald Trump is no different. As of now, it’s impossible to say if Trump’s alleged offense was great, small, or in between. But this for sure is a huge story, and its hugeness extends in multiple directions, including the extraordinary political risk inherent in the decision to execute the raid. If it backfires, if underlying this action there isn’t a very substantial there there, the Biden administration just took the world’s most reputable police force and turned it into the American version of the Tonton Macoute on national television. We may be looking at simultaneously the dumbest and most inadvertently destructive political gambit in the recent history of this country. The top story today in the New York Times, bylined by its top White House reporter, speculates this is about “delayed returning” of “15 boxes of material requested by officials with the National Archives.” If that’s true, and it’s not tied to January 6th or some other far more serious offense, then the Justice Department just committed institutional suicide and moved the country many steps closer to once far-out eventualities like national revolt or martial law. This is true no matter what you think of Trump. Despite the early reports of “cheers” in the West Wing, the mood in center-left media has already drifted markedly from the overnight celebration. The Times story today added a line missing from most early reports: “The search, however, does not mean prosecutors have determined that Mr. Trump committed a crime.” There are whispers throughout the business that editors are striking down certain jubilant language, and we can even see this playing out on cable, where the most craven of the networks’ on-air ex-spooks are crab-crawling backward from last night’s buzz-words: The hugeness of the story has become part of its explanation. An action so extreme, we’re told by expert after expert, could only be based upon “pulverizing” evidence. Throughout the Trump years we’ve seen a numbing pattern of rhetorical slippage in coverage of investigations. The aforementioned Politics Insider story is no different. “Likely” evidence in the headline becomes more profound in the text. An amazing five bylined writers explain: Regardless of the raid’s focus legal experts quickly reached a consensus about it: A pile of evidence must have backed up the warrant authorizing the search.They then quoted a “former top official in the Justice Department’s National Security Division” — you’ll quickly lose track if you try to count the named and unnamed intel spooks appearing in coverage today — who said, “There’s every reason to think that there’s a plus factor in the quantum and quantity of evidence that the government already had to support probable cause in this case.” Politico insisted such an action must have required a magistrate’s assent “based upon evidence of a potential crime.” CNN wrote how authorities necessarily “had probable grounds to believe a crime had been committed,” while the New York Times formulation was that “the F.B.I. would have needed to convince a judge that it had probable cause that a crime had been committed.” Social media was full of credentialed observers explaining what must be true. “The affidavit in support of the MAL search warrant must be something else,” said Harvard-trained former Assistant US Attorney Richard Signorelli, one among a heap of hyperventilating names... Subscribe to read the whole article. Welcome to the Third World Click on the headline to read the full story from Peace and Prosperity
Armed Federal agents busted into former President Trump's Florida house last night, ostensibly to seek classified documents that were to be turned in to the National Archives. What's behind this unprecedented move? Also today: Biden sends Ukraine $4 billion...to help with their budget! And finally: media races to claim Biden chalking up victories. Why? Watch today's Liberty Report:Police State? Armed Feds Raid Trump House Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute
 NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg recently addressed the Workers Youth League (AUF) summer camp in Utøya, Norway. The AUF is Norway’s largest political youth organization and is affiliated with the Norwegian Labor Party. The AUF summer camp is of course famous for being the scene of the horrific terrorist attack perpetrated by neo-Nazi Anders Breivik in 2011. Stoltenberg said little of note. Nonetheless, his speech was a remarkable demonstration of how little NATO has learned from the dramatic events of this year. A serious military conflict is taking place on the European continent, a conflict that NATO had played a substantial role in triggering through its unwavering insistence on scooping up as many countries in Europe, Central Asia and beyond into its military system, without any regard for the security concerns of others. The war in Ukraine is moreover the second major conflict to break out on the European continent within the last 25 years. Both of these conflicts are inextricably linked to two NATO commitments: first, to limitless expansion and, second, to the elimination of Russia’s presence and influence from Europe once and for all. The war in Ukraine was triggered by the first commitment; the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia by the second. Bombing of Yugoslavia down the memory hole Stoltenberg is of course cheerfully oblivious to any of this. At one point during his speech, he even had the insolence to say of the fighting in Ukraine: We are seeing acts of war, attacks on civilians and destruction not seen since World War II. We cannot be indifferent to this.Not “seen since World War II”? Stoltenberg, like most official front-men for NATOLand, has evidently forgotten the 11-week bombing campaign that NATO waged against Yugoslavia, the first bombing attacks on major European cities since Hitler. Some of NATO’s atrocities include: a daytime attack on a passenger train crossing the railway bridge over the Južna Morava river at Grdelica gorge, killing 14; the attack on the column of displaced civilians over a 12-mile stretch of road between Djakoviča and Decani in western Kosovo, killing 73; the attack on the Belgrade headquarters of Radio Television of Serbia, killing 16; the attack on a residential area in the southern town of Surdulica in southeastern Serbia, killing 16; the destruction of a passenger bus on Lužane bridge in Kosovo, killing at least 23; the daytime cluster bombing of the market in Niš, killing 15; the bombing of the Kosovo Albanian village of Koriša, killing 87; the attack on the Dragiša Mišović hospital in Belgrade, killing three; the attack on the bridge in Varvarin in south-central Serbia, killing three; the bombing of a sanatorium and a nearby old people’s home in Surdilica, killing 17; the attack on an apartment building in Novi Pazar in southwest Serbia, killing 10. The list can easily be extended. The point is that NATO continues to live in its own delusional world in which a 30-country-strong military alliance, armed with nuclear weapons, is purely “defensive” and wouldn’t in a million years dream of hurting a fly. Countries “can choose their own path” President Putin, Stoltenberg claimed, has attacked an entire innocent country and people, with military force, to achieve his political goals. What he is really doing is challenging the world order we believe in. Where all countries, large and small, can choose their own path. He does not accept the sovereignty of other countries.It is easy—and not a little tedious—to list everything that is objectionable about that statement. Ukraine is hardly entirely “innocent”: The current government in Kiev came to power in 2014 through a violent coup against a legally-elected government; it has waged an eight-year war against its own people, in which some 13,000 (maybe more) people have been killed; it has imposed a blockade against the civilian population of its own country; it has refused to implement a peace agreement that it had signed and that was subsequently adopted by the U.N. Security Council in Resolution 2202 (2015). As for using military force to “achieve political goals,” well, NATO has done an awful lot of that. NATO bombed the Serbs of Bosnia in 1995 in order to secure the creation of an artificial state in the Balkans that would effectively be under NATO’s control. Because NATO failed to achieve its desired goal, namely, the creation of a unitary state, it has been seeking to undermine the agreement that ended the war ever since. The Dayton Accords of 1995 crafted an unwieldy state of Bosnia and Herzegovina made up of two loosely-connected entities—the Muslim-Croat federation and the Republika Srpska. However, the Dayton agreement made no mention of the creation of joint Bosnian state institutions such a national army, still less of any prospective NATO membership. Yet the NATO powers have more than 25 years continued to pretend that any reluctance on the part of the state’s citizens (mostly the Serbs) to follow through on the creation of a national army and of course on applying for NATO membership or realizing their “Euro-Atlantic ambitions,” to use the preferred jargon is a violation of Dayton Accords. “We will not tolerate Republika Srpska’s secessionist policies, which endanger Bosnia and Herzegovina’s future and the stability in the region,” the democracy-loving G-7 foreign ministers thundered in a joint statement issued on May 14. NATO also used military force to secure political goals when it bombed Yugoslavia in 1999. NATO sought to topple the government of President Slobodan Milošević and to seize the province of Kosovo from Serbia. This province, like Bosnia and Herzegovina, has remained under effective NATO occupation and serves as home to a giant, brand-new US military base in Europe, Camp Bondsteel. NATO also used military force in 2011 when it launched an “unprovoked” bombing attack on Libya in order to get rid of independent-minded Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi—long a thorn in the side of the West. There was some ludicrous talk at the time emanating from NATO and NATO governments that only a prolonged bombing campaign could save the residents of Benghazi from “genocide.” A subsequent U.K. House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee report, “Libya: Examination of Intervention and Collapse and the U.K.’s Future Policy Options,” ridiculed the assertions NATO made in order to justify its attack: Despite his rhetoric, the proposition that Muammar Gaddafi would have ordered the massacre of civilians in Benghazi was not supported by the available evidence. The Gaddafi regime had retaken towns from the rebels without attacking civilians in early February 2011….More widely, Muammar Gaddafi’s 40-year record of appalling human rights abuses did not include large-scale attacks on Libyan civilians.Stoltenberg, protected by an obsequious NATO press corps, can rest easy that he will never be confronted with such unpleasant facts. The rest of Stoltenberg’s claims were standard Western cliches. “World order we believe in”? Who’s the “we”? The “we” obviously don’t include most of the countries of the world, the ones who have pointedly refused to join in the Western sanctions campaign against Russia. As for countries’ right to choose “their own path,” that in NATO parlance only applies to countries that choose the path laid down by NATO. Serbia certainly didn’t enjoy that right in the 1990s. The most truthful explanation for NATO’s extraordinary hostility toward Yugoslavia during that decade, a hostility that culminated in a brutal bombing campaign, came straight from the horse’s mouth. John Norris, former communications director to Strobe Talbott, deputy secretary of state during the Clinton administration, wrote in his book, Collision Course: NATO, Russia, and Kosovo (2005): It was Yugoslavia’s resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform—not the plight of Kosovar Albanians—that best explains NATO’s war. Milošević had been a burr in the side of the transatlantic community for so long that the United States felt that he would only respond to military pressure. Slobodan Milošević’s repeated transgressions ran directly counter to the vision of a Europe “whole and free,” and challenged the very value of NATO’s continued existence….It was precisely because Milošević had been so adroit at outmaneuvering the West that NATO came to view the ever-escalating use of force as its only option….NATO went to war in Kosovo because its political and diplomatic leaders had [sic] enough of Milošević and saw his actions disrupting plans to bring a wider stable of nations into the transatlantic communityThere it is: nothing to do with Kosovo, and everything to do with resistance to NATO/E.U. takeover of every piece of real estate in Europe. The Serbia of today, incidentally, has no more of a right to choose its own path than the Serbia of the 1990s had. Serbian political leaders, including Serbian President Alexander Vučić, have repeatedly spoken out about the pressure they have been subjected to by the NATO powers in order to get them to agree to imposing sanctions against their longstanding friend and ally, Russia. Doubtless, had Qaddafi not been murdered during NATO’s 2011 bombing campaign, he too could today adumbrate in some detail on the issue of Libya’s right to choose its own path. In any case, an unconditional right to join NATO—the right to choose one’s own path—has never been considered the fundamental determinant of national sovereignty. There is no article in the U.N. Charter that says that every U.N. member-state has the right to join any military alliance it wants without regard to the security concerns of other U.N. member-states. It is certainly not a right that the United States recognizes, as evidenced by its recent furious response to the news that the Solomon Islands (nowhere near physically to the United States) had signed a security agreement with China, which might lead to China’s building a military base on the islands. Read the whole article here. NATO Learns Nothing and Forgets Nothing Click on the headline to read the full story from Ron Paul Institute
 A good friend of mine, learning of the impending visit of Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, recalled Homer’s description of Helen of Troy, “The face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the towers of Ilium.” Well, Nancy ain’t no Helen of Troy, but she might nevertheless be in the business of launching warships and burning cities due to her bizarre interpretation of her foreign policy prerogatives as Speaker. It is like watching a train wreck developing in slow motion. Witnessing the highly dangerous behavior of the Biden Administration and its acolytes in power like Pelosi, one feels compelled to ask whether the White House and Congress are now setting the stage for the elevation of China to the status of foreign enemy number one? Indeed, if one has been hanging around Washington for the past twenty-five years or so, it was hard to miss the often-surfaced bipartisan contention that China is America’s major over-the-horizon adversary, or even enemy, with its growing economy, its successful geopolitics, and its huge industrious population. I can still recall my shock at hearing Democratic Senator Jim Webb, an honorable and highly intelligent Iraq War critic, telling a conservative gathering in 2015 that the real future threat to the United States would be coming from China. Fear of China, sometimes dubbed in racist language as the “Yellow Peril,” has a long tradition in the United States and in Europe. In the current context, the US government is certainly apprehensive about where the increasing rapprochement between China and Russia is going, summed up by Secretary of State Tony Blinken as “The deepening strategic partnership between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation and their mutually reinforcing attempts to undercut the rules-based international order run counter to our values and interests.” Ironically enough, that development stems from the inept US diplomacy exemplified by Blinken’s tunnel vision that most recently allowed a negotiable crisis to develop into a full-fledged war over Ukraine. But a much more significant development stems from the Chinese success when playing at what might be called the global geostrategy game. The Chinese Silk Road project threatens to create a new economic reality for Eurasia, squeezing the US out and creating unique networks for marketing, transportation, and the contractual exploitation of third world natural resources. Again ironically, the US was once upon a time the master at creating such networks to benefit the American economy and workers, but unmanageable debt plus inflation combined with outsourcing and lack of any industrial policy means that that advantage has largely vanished. To put it bluntly, China has outcompeted the United States, and whether that constitutes a threat depends on which side of the fence one is standing on. NATO alliance Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, is also part of the gamesmanship, observing how “China is substantially building up its military forces, including nuclear weapons, bullying its neighbors, threatening Taiwan … monitoring and controlling its own citizens through advanced technology, and spreading Russian lies and disinformation.” Stoltenberg and Blinken’s indictment of China was followed by a NATO issued “strategic concept” document that declared for the first time that China poses a “systemic challenge” to the alliance and declarations by the heads of the CIA and MI6 that China constitutes the “biggest long-term threat to our economic and national security.” One would not expect China to be silent when confronted by the threats from the West and, indeed, Beijing has made clear that that Washington is “playing with fire” and that there would be “consequences.” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian observed that the “so-called rules-based international order is actually a family rule made by a handful of countries to serve the US self-interest,” adding that “[Washington] observes international rules only as it sees fit.” It would be correct to describe the US-China relationship as currently occupying a low point. The result has been to create an international crisis where there was none to start with, and it goes on. There have been two more interesting developments in the US versus China saga in the past two weeks. First came a video-link two hour and seventeen minute “summit” between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Biden’s declared mission was to address those issues that impeded a more manageable relationship between the two countries, or at least that is how it was described. The issues discussed by Biden and Xi included not taking any steps that would challenge the status quo re Taiwan as well as Chinese territorial claims in the South China Sea which the US maintains have inhibited “freedom of the seas” for foreign vessels transiting the area. China has responded that it is only exercising its sovereignty and stresses that its international presence is largely derived from its perfectly legal commercial and business activity. Other issues under discussion included what to do about climate change and the evolving situation in Ukraine. The possibility of rolling back some tariffs imposed by Donald Trump apparently was not discussed. More provocative by far than the Biden phone call, which at least was ostensibly intended to mend fences, is the decision by Nancy Pelosi to make an August trip to Taiwan, which has now been completed. It was the first visit by an American official at that level since 1997 and it sought to confirm the US total commitment to defend the Taiwanese if China were to seek to establish full control of the Island. The proposed visit had been linked to moves by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who shifted US military resources in the Far East to provide possible protection for Pelosi’s travel on a US Air Force plane if the Chinese were to attempt to block her by declaring a no-fly zone over the island. Austin ordered the Commander of US Forces in the Indo-Pacific region (aka INDOPACCOM) to send the Ronald Reagan Carrier Strike Group into the South China Sea as a “show of force,” which was construed as a deliberate demonstration to the Chinese that they have no actual sovereignty over Taiwan. In the event, China responded to the Pelosi visit with a live fire military exercise in the air space and in the waters around Taiwan and whatever takes place next will have to be dealt with by the Taiwanese. The Pentagon is reportedly preparing “options” if China actually does choose to invade. But nevertheless, the visit, which cost the US taxpayer $90 million, was clearly intended to send certain signals to Beijing and those signals were not only not friendly but even threatening. Pelosi assured Taiwan’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, that there would be US support despite threats from China, saying “Today the world faces a choice between democracy and autocracy. America’s determination to preserve democracy here in Taiwan and around the world remains ironclad.” Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? It is also language that is largely intended to appeal to the domestic audience in the US with midterm elections coming up in November. It always is popular to take cheap shots at Russia, Iran or China. Interestingly, President Joe Biden, apparently supported privately by Austin, actually opposed the Speaker’s trip as it reportedly could disrupt his intention to actually meet Xi face-to-face at some point in the future. Pelosi, who lacks having any actual constitutional foreign policy role apart from approving budgets, has provided ammunition for those among the Chinese leadership who have come to believe that the United States cannot be trusted to honor any agreement made with a foreign government. The Speaker clearly had not heard about or understand the “One China Policy” and the “strategic ambiguity” that governs the relationship between China and the US over Taiwan to avoid any military escalation regarding that issue. Joe Biden, admittedly, has also muddied the waters by declaring three times that the US might have to use force to defend Taiwan if it is attacked as Ukraine was, even though he and his aides later insisted that he was not changing policy. The US, for its part, actually concedes the island is part of China, though “strategic ambiguity” has meant that Beijing has not yet sought to assert direct political control over it. Given that status and the threatening moves by Austin to protect Pelosi’s trip, one might imagine what the American reaction would be if China were openly making plans to fly its fighter jets into US airspace in order to forcibly land a senior Chinese official without an invitation from the State Department. As always, there have been other possible developments, including reports that the US-funded National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is active in currently unstable Myanmar (Burma), fomenting trouble to distract China in its own backyard. NED is notorious for its role in regime change operations that were once the responsibility of the CIA, including the 2014 Maidan revolt in Ukraine. China is surely aware of the American involvement in regional meddling. Pushing from the other direction, North Korea is threatening to use nuclear weapons if it is attacked by the US and South Korea, which will inevitably involve China. Pyongyang was responding to reports that Seoul and Washington are planning war games that will include a “decapitation exercise” simulating the assassination of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un. On balance, the United States has little to gain and much to lose by ratcheting up the pressure on China and its leadership in an attempt to create the “Pearl Harbor Moment” so much desired by the neocons and the hardliners in government. On the contrary, Nancy Pelosi should have stayed home and the White House should be working even harder to identify and pursue those opportunities for cooperation between the two countries. The ongoing bipartisan framing of China as an enemy of both the United States and of NATO is not the way to go, as it will literally force the Chinese to respond in kind. If one considers what is going on with Russia in terms of disruption of international trade, just imagine what would happen if the world’s biggest economy in China were to begin its own round of sanctions and selective withholding of manufactured goods. And then there is the risk of igniting yet another needless war, one that also comes with nuclear weapons as a last resort if either side were to perceive that it was “losing.” It is just not worth it, is it? But then again, it never is. Reprinted with permission from Unz Review. Producing New Enemies for No Reason Whatsoever Click on the headline to read the full story from
The laughably-named "Inflation Reduction Act" will double the size of the IRS - making it larger than the Pentagon, State Department, FBI, and Border Patrol...combined! And that will save money? Also today: under (government?) pressure, CBS censors its own report on US weapons to Ukraine. And...is the end of "woke" entertainment on the horizon? Today on the Liberty Report:Armed Robbery: Anti-Inflation Bill To Unleash Massive IRS Army Click on the headline to read the full story from Peace and Prosperity
 You can always tell how important narrative control is by watching the way people react when their control of the narrative is jeopardized. Empire apologists are raging at Amnesty International for pausing its aggressive facilitation of western imperialism to issue one brief criticism of the way Ukrainian forces have been endangering civilian lives with their warfare tactics against the Russian military. Amnesty is far from the first to highlight this extensively documented issue; that Ukrainian forces have been deliberately positioning themselves in civilian populations without taking proper measures to protect noncombatants is a concern that has been voiced repeatedly since the war began and reported on by both mainstream western news outlets and the United Nations. Nevertheless, Amnesty’s claim that “Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals” has drawn fire from Ukrainian officials, from mass media pundits, from the brainwashed rank-and-file on social media, and from President Zelensky himself. A common criticism circulating among the outrage is that Amnesty is facilitating Russian propaganda, has been influenced by Russian propaganda, or has itself become an instrument of Russian propaganda. The head of Amnesty International’s Ukrainian branch resigned as a result of the report, saying that “the organization created material that sounded like support for Russian narratives” and that in an effort to protect civilians, “this study became a tool of Russian propaganda.” “It is a shame that the organization like Amnesty is participating in this disinformation and propaganda campaign,” tweeted Zelensky advisor Mykhailo Podolyak. “Amnesty International can go to hell for this garbage,” tweeted Human Rights Foundation Chairman Garry Kasparov. “Or go to Ukraine, which Putin’s war is trying to turn into hell. As with their actions on Navalny, it reeks of Russian influence turning Kremlin propaganda into Amnesty statements.” The Daily Mail called the Amnesty report “a coup for Vladimir Putin’s propaganda machine.” “The organization gives a huge assist to Russian propaganda,” tweeted Oleksiy Sorokin, chief operating officer of the NATO propaganda outlet Kyiv Independent. “Shameful victim-blaming. Russia invaded Ukraine and is committing unspeakable war crimes there. Please do not amplify Russian lies,” tweeted Paul Massaro of the US government’s Helsinki Commission. The underlying premise behind these complaints, of course, is that it is Amnesty International’s job to help Ukraine win a propaganda campaign against Russia. Which is odd, because Amnesty’s reporting on the war has actually been overwhelmingly biased in favor of Ukraine this entire time. “Anger directed at Amnesty is surprising given that it is the first critical piece the group has written on Ukraine since the war began,” reports Unherd. “Over the last six months, Amnesty has published 40 articles on Ukraine, nearly all of which condemn Russia’s invasion, with only one exception — its latest — that could be conceivably described as critical of Ukraine.” Even the Amnesty report currently sparking all the outrage contains repeated condemnations of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, citing “indiscriminate attacks by Russian forces” and “war crimes” Amnesty has found Russia guilty of committing, as well as decrying the use of “inherently indiscriminate weapons, including internationally banned cluster munitions.” But even ninety-nine percent loyalty to the official line is not enough for imperial spinmeisters and the empire’s useful idiots. Anything short of 100 percent compliance counts as Russian propaganda. But that’s precisely the notion that has been drummed into western consciousness with ever-increasing fervor since 2016: that any dissent about US foreign policy is Russian propaganda. Don’t support western interventionism in Syria? You’re spouting Russian propaganda. Worried about nuclear war? Russian propaganda. Don’t think the fight for US unipolar domination is worth all this dangerous brinkmanship? Russian propaganda. Don’t like the idea of an expensive proxy war with no exit strategy whose economic fallout is making life harder and harder for more and more people all around the world? Russian propaganda. I myself am accused of being a peddler of Russian propaganda many times per day, and have been for years. This despite my hardly ever consuming Russian media, never receiving a penny from Russia, and never having worked for the Russian government or any other government at any time. Russian media have at times chosen of their own initiative to amplify my work since I have a standing invitation for anyone to do so, but I’m literally just an Australian woman writing her opinions online with her American husband. I only qualify as “Russian propaganda” because I disagree with US foreign policy. Ask anyone who says a criticism of the western empire’s Ukraine policy is “Russian propaganda” to name a critic of western Ukraine policy who they don’t consider a Russian propagandist. They won’t be able to. For them, disagreeing with one’s government about Ukraine is itself Russian propaganda. For empire apologists the measure of what constitutes “Russian propaganda” about Ukraine has nothing to do with whether or not what’s being said is true or valid; it’s literally just a question of obedience to one’s government about the decisions it’s been making with regard to that nation. If the measure of whether something qualifies as propaganda is defined entirely by whether it agrees with one’s government, then that measure is itself propaganda. That’s exactly what’s happening with criticism of the west’s interventionism in Ukraine. Something doesn’t have to come from Russia to be considered Russian propaganda, and its source doesn’t need to have any connection to the Russian government. It doesn’t even have to be false. All it needs to be is disobedient. We saw this illustrated this past June when The Guardian published a NATO-backed claim that journalist Aaron Maté was “the most prolific spreader of disinformation” among a “Russia-backed network of Syria conspiracy theorists,” despite being incapable of citing a single false thing in Maté’s Syria reporting, and despite The Guardian having to hastily edit out their “Russia-backed” claim. We also saw this illustrated this past June in a University of Calgary briefing paper on “disinformation” about the war in Ukraine which warns about “five primary narratives” being circulated online: 1. Implying NATO expansionism legitimizes the Russian invasionThere are arguments of varying strengths to be made for every one of those points, but more importantly it is self-evident that all of them are matters of opinion and none of them meet any sane definition of “disinformation”. They also can’t in and of themselves rightly be called either “Russian” or “propaganda”. Russian propaganda certainly exists, and the Russian government certainly has a vested interest in influencing western thought in its strategic favor to whatever extent it is capable. But its capability is very, very limited, especially compared to the exponentially greater influence that western institutions have over our minds. Russia has a few trolls and some media outlets that were barely viewed by westerners even before they were banned; the US-centralized empire has the billionaire media, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and the education system. Comparing the two is like comparing a candle to the sun, and the sun ain’t Russia. But that’s the one whose influence over our minds we’re meant to worry about. In reality we are swimming in propaganda that is favorable to the US empire our entire lives; it’s so ubiquitous that people don’t even notice it. Claiming your support for US foreign policy on an issue has nothing to do with being propagandized is like someone who was raised in the Westboro Baptist Church claiming it was pure coincidence that he happens to agree with the church on the sinfulness of homosexuality. It pervades our minds and shapes our society, but they want us all freaking out about the virtually nonexistent problem of “Russian propaganda”. This is a thought-killing dynamic, and it is a major problem. It is not good that propaganda is shoved into our minds manufacturing consent for dangerous escalations between the world’s two greatest nuclear powers while anyone who opposes any part of it is dismissed as a Russian propagandist or a useful idiot of the Kremlin. We should be using our minds more at this critical juncture, but these dynamics put in place by imperial narrative managers have instead got us using them a lot less. Old joke: A Russian and an American get on a plane in Moscow and get to talking. The Russian says he works for the Kremlin and he’s on his way to go learn American propaganda techniques. “What American propaganda techniques?” asks the American. “Exactly,” the Russian replies. Reprinted with permission from CaityJohnstone.Medium.com. Support the author on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. 'Russian Propaganda' Just Means Disobedience Click on the headline to read the full story from
You can always tell how important narrative control is by watching the way people react when their control of the narrative is jeopardized. Empire apologists are raging at Amnesty International for pausing its aggressive facilitation of western imperialism to issue one brief criticism of the way Ukrainian forces have been endangering civilian lives with their warfare tactics against the Russian military. Amnesty is far from the first to highlight this extensively documented issue; that Ukrainian forces have been deliberately positioning themselves in civilian populations without taking proper measures to protect noncombatants is a concern that has been voiced repeatedly since the war began and reported on by both mainstream western news outlets and the United Nations. Nevertheless, Amnesty’s claim that “Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm’s way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals” has drawn fire from Ukrainian officials, from mass media pundits, from the brainwashed rank-and-file on social media, and from President Zelensky himself. A common criticism circulating among the outrage is that Amnesty is facilitating Russian propaganda, has been influenced by Russian propaganda, or has itself become an instrument of Russian propaganda. The head of Amnesty International’s Ukrainian branch resigned as a result of the report, saying that “the organization created material that sounded like support for Russian narratives” and that in an effort to protect civilians, “this study became a tool of Russian propaganda.” “It is a shame that the organization like Amnesty is participating in this disinformation and propaganda campaign,” tweeted Zelensky advisor Mykhailo Podolyak. “Amnesty International can go to hell for this garbage,” tweeted Human Rights Foundation Chairman Garry Kasparov. “Or go to Ukraine, which Putin’s war is trying to turn into hell. As with their actions on Navalny, it reeks of Russian influence turning Kremlin propaganda into Amnesty statements.” The Daily Mail called the Amnesty report “a coup for Vladimir Putin’s propaganda machine.” “The organization gives a huge assist to Russian propaganda,” tweeted Oleksiy Sorokin, chief operating officer of the NATO propaganda outlet Kyiv Independent. “Shameful victim-blaming. Russia invaded Ukraine and is committing unspeakable war crimes there. Please do not amplify Russian lies,” tweeted Paul Massaro of the US government’s Helsinki Commission. The underlying premise behind these complaints, of course, is that it is Amnesty International’s job to help Ukraine win a propaganda campaign against Russia. Which is odd, because Amnesty’s reporting on the war has actually been overwhelmingly biased in favor of Ukraine this entire time. “Anger directed at Amnesty is surprising given that it is the first critical piece the group has written on Ukraine since the war began,” reports Unherd. “Over the last six months, Amnesty has published 40 articles on Ukraine, nearly all of which condemn Russia’s invasion, with only one exception — its latest — that could be conceivably described as critical of Ukraine.” Even the Amnesty report currently sparking all the outrage contains repeated condemnations of Russia’s actions in Ukraine, citing “indiscriminate attacks by Russian forces” and “war crimes” Amnesty has found Russia guilty of committing, as well as decrying the use of “inherently indiscriminate weapons, including internationally banned cluster munitions.” But even ninety-nine percent loyalty to the official line is not enough for imperial spinmeisters and the empire’s useful idiots. Anything short of 100 percent compliance counts as Russian propaganda. But that’s precisely the notion that has been drummed into western consciousness with ever-increasing fervor since 2016: that any dissent about US foreign policy is Russian propaganda. Don’t support western interventionism in Syria? You’re spouting Russian propaganda. Worried about nuclear war? Russian propaganda. Don’t think the fight for US unipolar domination is worth all this dangerous brinkmanship? Russian propaganda. Don’t like the idea of an expensive proxy war with no exit strategy whose economic fallout is making life harder and harder for more and more people all around the world? Russian propaganda. I myself am accused of being a peddler of Russian propaganda many times per day, and have been for years. This despite my hardly ever consuming Russian media, never receiving a penny from Russia, and never having worked for the Russian government or any other government at any time. Russian media have at times chosen of their own initiative to amplify my work since I have a standing invitation for anyone to do so, but I’m literally just an Australian woman writing her opinions online with her American husband. I only qualify as “Russian propaganda” because I disagree with US foreign policy. Ask anyone who says a criticism of the western empire’s Ukraine policy is “Russian propaganda” to name a critic of western Ukraine policy who they don’t consider a Russian propagandist. They won’t be able to. For them, disagreeing with one’s government about Ukraine is itself Russian propaganda. For empire apologists the measure of what constitutes “Russian propaganda” about Ukraine has nothing to do with whether or not what’s being said is true or valid; it’s literally just a question of obedience to one’s government about the decisions it’s been making with regard to that nation. If the measure of whether something qualifies as propaganda is defined entirely by whether it agrees with one’s government, then that measure is itself propaganda. That’s exactly what’s happening with criticism of the west’s interventionism in Ukraine. Something doesn’t have to come from Russia to be considered Russian propaganda, and its source doesn’t need to have any connection to the Russian government. It doesn’t even have to be false. All it needs to be is disobedient. We saw this illustrated this past June when The Guardian published a NATO-backed claim that journalist Aaron Maté was “the most prolific spreader of disinformation” among a “Russia-backed network of Syria conspiracy theorists,” despite being incapable of citing a single false thing in Maté’s Syria reporting, and despite The Guardian having to hastily edit out their “Russia-backed” claim. We also saw this illustrated this past June in a University of Calgary briefing paper on “disinformation” about the war in Ukraine which warns about “five primary narratives” being circulated online: 1. Implying NATO expansionism legitimizes the Russian invasionThere are arguments of varying strengths to be made for every one of those points, but more importantly it is self-evident that all of them are matters of opinion and none of them meet any sane definition of “disinformation”. They also can’t in and of themselves rightly be called either “Russian” or “propaganda”. Russian propaganda certainly exists, and the Russian government certainly has a vested interest in influencing western thought in its strategic favor to whatever extent it is capable. But its capability is very, very limited, especially compared to the exponentially greater influence that western institutions have over our minds. Russia has a few trolls and some media outlets that were barely viewed by westerners even before they were banned; the US-centralized empire has the billionaire media, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and the education system. Comparing the two is like comparing a candle to the sun, and the sun ain’t Russia. But that’s the one whose influence over our minds we’re meant to worry about. In reality we are swimming in propaganda that is favorable to the US empire our entire lives; it’s so ubiquitous that people don’t even notice it. Claiming your support for US foreign policy on an issue has nothing to do with being propagandized is like someone who was raised in the Westboro Baptist Church claiming it was pure coincidence that he happens to agree with the church on the sinfulness of homosexuality. It pervades our minds and shapes our society, but they want us all freaking out about the virtually nonexistent problem of “Russian propaganda”. This is a thought-killing dynamic, and it is a major problem. It is not good that propaganda is shoved into our minds manufacturing consent for dangerous escalations between the world’s two greatest nuclear powers while anyone who opposes any part of it is dismissed as a Russian propagandist or a useful idiot of the Kremlin. We should be using our minds more at this critical juncture, but these dynamics put in place by imperial narrative managers have instead got us using them a lot less. Old joke: A Russian and an American get on a plane in Moscow and get to talking. The Russian says he works for the Kremlin and he’s on his way to go learn American propaganda techniques. “What American propaganda techniques?” asks the American. “Exactly,” the Russian replies. Reprinted with permission from CaityJohnstone.Medium.com. Support the author on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. 'Russian Propaganda' Just Means Disobedience Click on the headline to read the full story from
 The reasoning behind the US government’s current confrontations with Russia and China is very much debated, with explanations including sheer incompetence, short-term opportunism from a Democratic Party hellbent on pursuing a destructive geopolitical agenda for its own domestic ends, a blind urge to preserve world domination driven by a diminishing role in world affairs and, from those believing in more rational responses, containment and deterrence as a systematic but flexible response. Not enough appears to have been said about the history lessons the US has learned - and appears to be trying to apply in the current conflicts in Ukraine and Taiwan - from its participation in the two world wars of the 20th century and how US worldwide domination derived from the way it positioned itself ahead of its involvement in those wars in 1917 and 1941. In both instances, the US skillfully observed from the distance the progression of hostilities and entered into them at a time, place and modus operandi of its choice. US participation in World War I, despite Woodrow Wilson’s affirmation that it was driven by a desire to make the world safer for democracy, was motivated by imperialistic pursuits masqueraded in the need to build a new world order to replace the so-called decadent European old regime. By entering the war during its third year and after substantial destruction, the US became the arbiter of Europe’s fate. From being its debtor, the US became Europe’s creditor as it accumulated more than half of the world’s gold. The weak political architecture that followed the Treaty of Versailles, including a limited League of Nations in which vanquished countries did not have a seat and in which Russia was also missing, was to a great extent the result of US actions and became one of the leading causes of World War II. The US successful military involvement in World War I led the ground for an advantageous positioning before World War II. Domestic isolationist sentiments during the 1930s provided a good excuse for the US government to intervene in the 1939-45 war at its own timing, and this strategy paid off handsomely as the collapse of Europe facilitated the US emergence in the 1950s with roughly 50 percent share of the world’s industrial output and as owner of the world’s reserve currency. The US strategic intents ahead of both world wars and its ultimate success has significant parallels with its current ongoing goal of preventing an economic alignment between Germany and Russia through competitive energy supplies from the latter to the former. US intervention in World War I had as one of its aims a desire to become the dominant foreign economic force in Czarist Russia at the expense of Germany, an objective unravelled by the October Revolution, and World War II led to the breakup of Germany as a means for the US to achieve supremacy in Western Europe. It can be argued that Germany, Europe’s strongest country, is still perceived by the US as an adversary if it drives closer to Russia, therefore defeating a Russo-German prospective alliance in the energy field was in the US interest no matter how much it would contribute to Germany’s deindustrialization and to the deterioration of its population’s wellbeing. In the current confrontations with Russia on Ukraine and with China on Taiwan, the former taking place and the latter unfolding, broader similarities with history can be drawn. Ideally, the US would not like to be directly involved, at least from the beginning, but rather have Russia and China debilitated as a result of US and allies’ military support and economic sanctions to enable the US to continue having unchallenged world supremacy. Nowadays Ukraine is a micro-cosmos of the debilitating effort played against Europe during World War II through the Lend-Lease Act, the ingenious scheme for US military support that indebted Europe for decades, which explains why the same device is been used again. The resurrection of Lend-Lease in Ukraine invokes the idea of the United States as the “arsenal of democracy,” as Franklin Roosevelt famously described in December 1940. Despite historic lessons that are tempting to be replayed again, many things can go wrong for the US in the current crisis in Ukraine and Taiwan, including unintended effects caused by escalation and gross miscalculation. A US government led by an increasingly disabled president does not give confidence on successfully steering the ship in current dangerous waters. History has also been learned by Russia and China and both countries seem to believe they have a good understanding of US real intentions vis-à-vis its words. The US current economic weakness compared to its much stronger standing prior to the world wars also begs the question of whether the US would be able to come on top one more time. During the world wars the US fought for the growth, expansion, and consolidation of its world power, whereas today it seems to fight to preserve and defend an eroding global power base weakened by a loss of competitive economic and scientific edge, shrinking military power despite increasing budgets, racial and ethnic loyalty conflicts exacerbated by multiculturalism, declining affordability of food due to wage decline, and a steady deterioration of its middle class. This grim reality makes one wonder if, from the point of view of its people’s prosperity, the US has ever fought an existential conflict aside from the American Independence and the American Civil wars. Oscar Silva-Valladares is a former investment banker who has lived and worked in North and Latin America, Western & Eastern Europe, Saudi Arabia, Japan, the Philippines, and Western Africa. He currently provides strategic consulting advisory on financial matters across emerging markets. World Wars’ Shadows: the US Current Clash with Russia and China Click on the headline to read the full story from
 House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s “surprise” trip to Taiwan last week should be “Exhibit A” as to why interventionism is dangerous, deadly, and dumb. Though she claimed her visit won some sort of victory for democracy over autocracy, the stopover achieved nothing of the sort. It was a pointless gesture that brought us closer to military conflict with zero benefits. As Col. Doug Macgregor said of Pelosi’s trip on a recent episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight, “statesmanship involves advancing American interests at the least cost to the American people. None of that is in play here. … Posturing is not statesmanship.” Pelosi’s trip was no outlier. Such counterproductive posturing is much celebrated by both parties in Washington. Neoconservative Senators Bob Menendez and Lindsey Graham were thrilled with Pelosi’s stop in Taipei and used it as a springboard to push for new legislation that would essentially declare war on China by declaring Taiwan a “major non-NATO ally.” The “one China” policy that, while perhaps not perfect, has kept the peace for more than 40 years is to be scrapped and replaced with one sure to provoke a war. Who benefits? Foolishly taking the US to the brink of war with Russia over Ukraine is evidently not enough for Washington’s bipartisan warmongering class. Risking a nuclear war on two fronts, with both Russia and China, is apparently the only way for Washington to show the rest of the world it’s serious. The Washington Post’s neoconservative columnist Josh Rogin accurately captures the mindset in Washington DC with a recent article titled, “The skeptics are wrong: The US can confront both China and Russia.” For Washington’s foreign policy “experts,” those of us who don’t believe a war with both Russia and China is a great idea are written off as “skeptics.” Count me as one of the skeptics! During the Cold War there were times of heightened tension, but even in the darkest days the idea that nuclear war with China and the Soviet Union could be a solution was held only by only a few madmen. Now, with the ideological struggles of the Cold War a decades-old memory, such an argument makes even less sense. Yet this is what Washington is selling. The US fighting a proxy war with Russia through Ukraine and Nancy Pelosi provoking China nearly to the point of war over Taiwan is meant to show the world how tough we are. In reality, it demonstrates the opposite. The drunken man in a bar challenging everyone to a fight is not tough. He’s foolish. He has nothing to gain and everything to lose from his display of bravado. That is interventionism at its core: a foolish policy that provokes nothing but anger overseas, benefits no one in the US except the special interests, and leaves the rest of us much poorer and worse off. There may be plenty to criticize about China’s government and policies. They are far from perfect, particularly in protection of civil liberties. But have we already forgotten that our own government shut down the country for two years over a virus, and then forced a huge number of Americans to take an experimental shot that is proving to be as worthless as it is dangerous? Let’s look at the log in our own eye before we start lobbing missiles overseas. Pelosi’s Taiwan Trip Exposes Foolishness of Interventionism Click on the headline to read the full story from |
   
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