Monkeypox Fears May Rescue Endangered Corporations

Posted on June 13, 2022 by Reid Mukai

Two corrupt companies were in rocky financial territory just a few weeks ago. Now, with concerns over a global monkeypox outbreak being hyped by media and global health organizations alike, the worries – and sins – of these two firms are quickly being forgotten.

By Whitney Webb

Source: Unlimited Hangout

In recent days, concern over a global outbreak of monkeypox, a mild disease related to smallpox and chickenpox, has been hyped in the media and health ministries around the world, even prompting an emergency meeting at the World Health Organization (WHO). For some, fears have centered around monkeypox being the potential “next pandemic” after Covid-19. For others, the fear is that monkeypox will be used as the latest excuse to further advance draconian biosecurity policies and global power grabs.

Regardless of how the monkeypox situation plays out, two companies are already cashing in. As concern over monkeypox has risen, so too have the shares of Emergent Biosolutions and SIGA Technologies. Both companies essentially have monopolies in the US market, and other markets as well, on smallpox vaccines and treatments. Their main smallpox-focused products are, conveniently, also used to protect against or treat monkeypox as well. As a result, the shares of Emergent Biosolutions climbed 12% on Thursday, while those of SIGA soared 17.1%.

For these companies, the monkeypox fears are a godsend, specifically for SIGA, which produces a smallpox treatment, known by its brand name TPOXX. It is SIGA’s only product. While some outlets have noted that the rise in the valuation of SIGA Technologies has coincided with recent concerns about monkeypox, essentially no attention has been given to the fact that the company is apparently the only piece of a powerful billionaire’s empire that isn’t currently crumbling.

That billionaire, “corporate raider” Ron Perelman, has deep and controversial ties to the Clinton family and the Democratic party as well as troubling ties to Jeffery Epstein. Aside from his controlling stake in SIGA, Perelman has recently made headlines for rapidly liquidating many of his assets in a desperate bid for cash.

Similarly, Emergent Biosolutions has also been in hot water. The company, which has troubling ties to the 2001 Anthrax attacks, came under fire just under two weeks ago for engaging in a “cover up” over quality control issues relating to their production of Covid-19 vaccines. A Congressional investigation found that quality control concerns at an Emergent-run facility led to more than 400 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines being discarded. The Emergent factory in question had been shut down by the FDA in April 2021. They were allowed to reopen last August before the government terminated the contract. Given that the majority of the company’s business is tied to US government contracts, the loss of this contract, and the accompanying poor publicity, the news that its smallpox vaccine may soon be of international interest is likely seen as a godsend by the company.

Notably, this the second time in a year that both companies have benefitted from pandemic or bioterror fears propagated by the media. Last November, speculation rose that a re-emergence of the eradicated virus that causes smallpox would soon take place. This first began with Bill Gates’ comments on the prospects of smallpox bioterrorism during a November 4^th, 2021 interview and was followed by the November 16^th announcement of a CDC/FBI investigation into 15 suspicious vials labeled “smallpox” at a Merck facility in Philadelphia. Now, roughly six months later, the same fears are again paying off for the same two companies.

A Killer Enterprise

Emergent Biosolution was previously known as BioPort. The company was founded by Fuad el-Hibri, a Lebanese businessman, who leveraged his contacts with powerful US former military officials and politicians, to take control of a flailing Michigan factory. It was the only factory authorized to produce an anthrax vaccine.

The anthrax vaccine was known to have major problems even before BioPort had acquired it, and is believed by many investigators to be one of the main causes of “Gulf War” syndrome. The vaccine itself, originally developed at Fort Detrick, had little to no safety track record at the time it was administered to US troops in the First Gulf War – a problem that was never remedied. However, its chronic safety issues and its clumsy, multi-dose regimen would later prompt BioPort/Emergent Biosolutions to spend years developing a new formulation of its anthrax vaccine.

The creation of BioPort coincided with the Clinton administration’s efforts to mandate the anthrax vaccine for all members of the US Armed Forces. With control over the only source of anthrax vaccine, BioPort was poised to make a killing.

Once the company acquired the Michigan facility, it took large amounts of US government funds, ostensibly to make improvements at the site. However, the company declined to use the funds to make the necessary repairs, instead spending that money on its executives’ offices, as opposed to the vaccine factory, and millions more on bonuses for “senior management.” Pentagon auditors would later find that still millions more had gone “missing” and BioPort’s staff were unaware of the cost of producing a single dose of the vaccine. Despite the clear mismanagement and corruption, BioPort demanded to be bailed out by the Pentagon, and they were. Meanwhile, the Michigan facility lost its license after a government inspection found numerous safety issues.

However, by August 2001, BioPort stood to lose the Pentagon contracts – its only source of income. The Pentagon began preparing a report, due to be released in September 2001, that would detail a plan for letting BioPort go. Thanks to the September 11, 2001 attack on the Pentagon, that report was never released. Shortly thereafter, the 2001 anthrax attacks began.

Just months before, BioPort had contracted Battelle Memorial Institute to help rescue its flailing vaccine program. The deal gave Battelle “immediate exposure to the vaccine” and it was used in connection with the Pentagon-funded, gain-of-function anthrax program that involved both Ken Alibek and William C. Patrick III, two bioweapons experts with deep ties to the CIA. That program was housed at Battelle’s West Jefferson facility in Ohio. That facility is believed by many investigators to be the source of the anthrax used in the 2001 attacks.

The ensuing panic from the anthrax attacks led the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to intervene. They gave BioPort its license back in January 2002 despite persisting safety concerns at its vaccine production facility in Michigan. BioPort was not content to merely see its past contracts with the Pentagon restored, however, as it began lobbying heavily for new contracts for anthrax vaccines intended for American civilians, postal workers and others. They would get them, largely thanks to HHS’ then-counter-terrorism adviser and soon to be HHS’ newest Assistant Secretary — Jerome Hauer. Hauer would later join the board of BioPort, after it reformed as Emergent Biosolutions, in 2004.

Such examples of cronyism are more common than not when it comes to Emergent Biosolutions. Indeed, the company has frequently relied on individuals who spend their careers passing through the “revolving door” between the pharmaceutical industry and government, particularly those who also moonlight as bioterror alarmists. One of the main individuals critical to the company’s success over the years has been Robert Kadlec. Kadlec served as the top bioterror advisor to the Pentagon in the weeks leading up to the 2001 anthrax attacks. Months prior, he had participated in the June 2001 simulation Dark Winter, which “predicted” major aspects of the subsequent anthrax attacks. Kadlec subsequently crafted much of the legislation that would create the country’s subsequent bioterror/pandemic response policy, including BARDA and the Strategic National Stockpile.

Soon after leaving government, Robert Kadlec helped found a new company in 2012 called “East West Protection,” which develops and delivers “integrated all-hazards preparedness and response systems for communities and sovereign nations.” The company also “advises communities and countries on issues related to the threat of weapons of mass destruction and natural pandemics.”

Kadlec formed the company with W. Craig Vanderwagen, the first HHS Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (a position Kadlec had helped write into law and would later hold himself). The other co-founder of East West Protection was Fuad El-Hibri, the founder of BioPort/Emergent Biosolutions, who had just stepped down as Emergent’s CEO earlier that year.

Kadlec then became a consultant. Kadlec’s consultancy firm, RPK Consulting, netted him $451,000 in 2014 alone, where he directly advised Emergent Biosolutions as well as other pharmaceutical companies like Bavarian Nordic. Kadlec was also a consultant to military and intelligence contractors, such as the DARPA-backed firm Invincea and NSA contractor Scitor, which was recently acquired by SAIC.

Kadlec would return to government as HHS ASPR under Trump, a position which he held at the time the Covid-19 crisis began. The year prior, in 2019, Kadlec had conducted a months-long simulation focused on a global pandemic originating in China called Crimson Contagion. Once the Covid-19 crisis began in earnest, he played a major role in securing Covid-19 vaccine contracts for Emergent Biosolutions, despite his conflicts of interest, some of which he had declined to disclose upon being appointed to serve as ASPR.

Emergent Biosolutions’ pattern of corrupt behavior, beginning with its anthrax vaccine, can be seen with its recent actions as it relates to its production of Covid-19 vaccines. Per the recent Congressional report, released just days before the recent spike in concern over monkeypox began, Emergent lab workers “intentionally sought to mislead government inspectors about issues” at its Baltimore-based plant and also repeatedly “rebuffed” efforts by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson to inspect their facilities. “Despite major red flags at its vaccine manufacturing facility, Emergent’s executives swept these problems under the rug and continued to rake in taxpayer dollars,” House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) stated upon the report’s release. Yet such “major red flags” can be found throughout the company’s entire history, for those willing to take the time to look.

Just days after the Congressional report was released, Emergent Biosolutions announced that it would acquire the exclusive worldwide rights to the “first FDA-approved Smallpox Oral Antiviral for all ages” from the company Chimerix. The drug, called TEMBEXA, is only for the treatment of smallpox, which the company refers to as “a high priority public health threat.” The press release on the company’s acquisition of TEMBEXA states that multi-million US government contracts for the product are anticipated. The FDA formally approved the drug last June.

Emergent Biosolutions also has the rights to the smallpox vaccine known as ACAM2000, which can also be used to treat monkeypox. The vaccine, originally produced by Sanofi, was acquired by the company in 2017. As a result, the company has an essential monopoly over smallpox vaccines as ACAM2000 is “the only vaccine licensed by the FDA for active immunization against smallpox disease for people determined to be at high risk of smallpox infection.”

Given their track record, it’s worth asking why Emergent Biosolutions has been working in recent months to pivot much of its business into smallpox treatments. However, there is no speculation needed when observing that the current monkeypox fears and helping rescue the company, whose shares had fallen some 26% year to date before concern over the recent monkeypox outbreak began to grow.

Whatever comes of the monkeypox situation, Emergent Biosolutions’ decades-long track record is undeniably one of corruption and cronyism.

“BioArmor” for Ron Perelman’s Flailing Business Empire

SIGA Technologies, which likens its products to “Human BioArmor”, features a quote from Bill Gates at the top of its about page. The quote reads: “[…] the next epidemic could originate on the computer screen of a terrorist intent on using genetic engineering to create a synthetic version of the smallpox virus […]” The quote is from Bill Gates’ speech to the 2017 Munich Security Conference, where he used to the threat specifically of smallpox to argue that “health security” and “international security” be merged. Notably, last March, the Munich Security Conference hosted a simulation of a global pandemic caused by a “genetically engineered monkeypox virus.”

SIGA is one example of a company that seeks to find its niche in the middle of “health security” and “international security.” It specifically provides “solutions for unmet needs in the health security market that comprises medical countermeasures against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, as well as emerging infectious diseases.” The majority of contracts for CBRN medical countermeasures in the US are funded by the Pentagon. While it promotes itself as a CBRN threat-focused company, SIGA is, for now, singularly focused on smallpox.

Indeed, SIGA Technologies is only currently profitable in the event of an actual outbreak of smallpox or a related disease, or when fear of a smallpox bioterror event is high. Specifically, concern over the latter has led to the company to win government contracts to produce TPOXX for the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS). This is because TPOXX is only used to treat active smallpox or monkeypox infection, not prevent it. This means that it is only useful if smallpox, monkeypox or a related disease is actively infecting people or if there is a high risk that one of these diseases will soon infect large groups of people. TPOXX was first approved in 2018 by the FDA and was approved by the European Medicine Agency (EMA) this past January. The FDA approved an intravenous version of TPOXX just this past Thursday. Overall, SIGA has received over $1 billion from the US government to develop TPOXX.

SIGA is currently partnered with HHS’ BARDA, the Department of Defense, the CDC and the NIH. Another partner is Lonza, a European pharmaceutical manufacturing firm that is partnered with both the World Economic Forum and Moderna. SIGA’s CEO, Phillip Gomez, is an alumni of PRTM Consulting, where he would have worked closely with Robert Kadlec, as the two men overlapped as directors of the firm and both worked advising government agencies on matters of public health and biodefense.

SIGA is also notable because it is possibly the only company in the business empire of corporate raider Ron Perelman that is not attached to growing mountains of debt. Perelman is one of the notorious corporate raiders from the 1980s who conducted corporate takeovers fueled by junk bonds, particularly those connected to Michael Milken’s Drexel Burnham Lambert. Perelman’s business tactics have long been informed by his volcanic temper and his ruthlessness, with former Salomon Brothers CEO John Gutfruend once remarking that “believing Mr. Perelman has no hostile intentions is like believing the tooth fairy exists.”

Perelman is also known for being a long-time patron of the Clinton family, even though, more recently he donated to Donald Trump’s political campaigns. Perelman apparently first became interested in courting influence with the Clintons after marrying Patricia Duff in 1994. Duff was deeply connected to the Democratic Party, having worked for Democratic pollster Pat Cadell, and she had also worked for the House panel that “investigated” the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Prior to marrying Perelman, she had been married to movie mogul Michael Medavoy and had “introduced Clinton to the Hollywood establishment,” according to the Washington Post.

As Perelman’s wife, Duff styled herself a leading Democratic fundraiser, with the 1995 fund-raising dinner being emblematic of that. Also, in 1995, Perelman attended a $1,000-a-plate dinner in New York for the Clintons, where Perelman sat across from the President, as well as a state dinner for Brazil’s president at the White House.

For Perelman, his generosity to the Clinton political machine resulted in an appointment by Clinton to the board of trustees of the Kennedy Center in 1995. Other, less public gestures from the Clintons were likely, as Perelman offered much more to the First Family than he appears to have received in return. Perhaps most notable of Perelman’s favors for Bill Clinton was his offering of jobs to scandal-ridden members of his administration, Webster Hubbell and Monica Lewinsky, in the wake of their respective controversies. However, after the job offers were publicly reported, both Hubbell and Lewinsky were let go, though the offers later caught the attention of independent counsel Ken Starr. Starr never subpoenaed or investigated Perelman or the offers he had made to Hubbell or Lewinsky.

The controversial hirings had been arranged between Perelman and Clinton advisor Vernon Jordan, who sat on the board of Revlon, a Perelman-controlled company, while his wife was on the board of another Perelman-owned firm. Jordan was known as Clinton’s “conduit to the high and mighty” and had taken Clinton to the 1991 Bilderberg conference. On the decision to hire Lewinsky following the scandal, a former business associate of Perelman’s told the Washington Post that “It’s like the Mafia, it’s all done in code,” adding that “I can assure you that Ronald made the decision to give Lewinsky the job. And I can assure you he wouldn’t want to know why Jordan was asking.”

In 1995, Perelman held a Clinton fundraiser at his mansion, with guests including singer Jimmy Buffett, Miami Vice actor Don Johnson, actor Michael Douglas’ then-wife Deandra and DNC co-chair Don Fowler. Other guests included A. Paul Prosperi, a corrupt Clinton crony, and the now infamous Jeffrey Epstein. Clinton himself attended the fundraiser. According to the Palm Beach Post, guests had donated at least $100,000 to the DNC to attend the dinner with the President. This was, of course, in the lead up to the 1996 election, and the DNC would later come under heavy scrutiny due to illegal fundraising. This fundraiser was not Epstein’s only interaction with Perelman – Perelman would later be listed as a frequent dinner guest of Epstein’s in the 2003 Vanity Fair profile penned by Vicky Ward and is listed in Epstein’s black book of contacts.

For most of the 2000s, Perelman has sat atop a massive, ever-growing fortune. Yet, since 2020, Perelman has “been unloading assets ‘A lot of them. Rapidly.’” It stated with sales of valuable paintings at Sotheby’s and soon extended to Perelman’s investment company MacAndrews & Forbes, which disposed of its interest in two companies that same year, including $1 billion in shares in Scientific Games. According to MoneyWeek, Perelman’s net worth dropped from $19 billion in 2018 to $4.2 billion in late 2020, “prompting speculation that he’s runnings out of money.” Over the course of last year, Perelman has continued to “downsize”, looking to sell off his estate in the Hamptons for $115 million, another 57-acre estate worth $180 million and two townhouses in Manhattan’s Upper East Side for $60 million.

Other assets held by Perelman’s company MacAndrews & Forbes are also drowning in debt. One of the few assets of the company that isn’t currently haemorrhaging money or struggling with debt is its shares in SIGA Technologies. Perelman’s main company, MacAndrews & Forbes, has long been one of SIGA’s biggest investors and remains its largest shareholder, controlling 33% of all shares.

Since Perelman got involved with SIGA, accusations of corruption have plagued the company. For instance, in May 2011, SIGA was given a no-bid contract worth about $433 million to develop and produce 1.7 million doses of anti-viral drug for smallpox. At the time there was no evidence the smallpox drug in question was capable of treating the disease and there was alarm among some HHS staffers that SIGA’s return on investment from the contract was “outrageous.” The contract began to be investigated over concerns that the contract had been awarded to SIGA precisely because it was controlled by Perelman, who had donated heavily to Barack Obama. At the time, CNN noted the following about Perelman’s connections to the Obama White House:

“Ronald Perelman is controlling shareholder of Siga Technologies and a longtime Democratic Party activist and fundraiser. He’s also a large contributor to Republicans, but has been a particular friend of the Obama White House.
Also on Siga’s board of directors is Andy Stern, former president of the Service Employees International Union, who has had close relations with the Obama administration and who has supported President Barack Obama’s health care initiatives.”

As a result of these concerns and the potential conflict of interest, a congressional investigation began. Days after learning that this key government contract may be in jeopardy, SIGA executives sold off large amounts of company stock at an average price of $13.46 per share, netting its Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer at the time millions of dollars. A month later, the company announced that its contract had been downsized and shares in the company fell to under $2 by that December.

Given past “pay-to-play” accusations around Perelman’s role in the firm during the Obama administration, when President Joe Biden served as Vice President, what are we to make of the recent media hype around monkeypox? Or concerns raised last year of a bioterrorism event involving smallpox?

Perhaps it’s more important to ask other questions – why has Perelman’s role in SIGA been largely obfuscated or totally ignored by recent reporting on the company? Similarly, why has Emergent Biosolutions’ horrific track record also been excluded from recent reports, including the major complaints from Congress made against the company less than two weeks ago? It seems the fear being generated around monkeypox is not only boosting shares for these two rotten companies, it’s helping the public forget their past sins.

We Create Our Own Reality

Posted on June 10, 2022 by Reid Mukai

By Julien Charles

Source: Off-Guardian

The world watched in varying states of mind as the Davos set enjoyed its annual turn on the world stage, supping on sumptuous Atlantic crab and fresh Iberian pork, sustainable Norweigian cod, and the best Italian coffee.

When not tucking into a lavish feast, they bandied about their ideas for how the world ought to exploited (the key euphemisms here are “sustainable,” “stakeholder,” and “impossible beef.”)

Some revile and protest the annual ruling class summit, but many millions more embrace it, even gaze admirably at the mandarins of the new world order as they flit across mobile screens and offer uplifting quotes to curious media attendees.

Indeed, few seem to care as the cabal of monied interests chat amiably about centrally managed digital currencies, consolidating global health authority in unelected bodies, collapsing the world economy, generating needless food shortages, unpopular fake meat, and other new market opportunities. Fewer still see the implicit threat of globalist agendas to the rule of sovereign states.

There is such little resistance largely because billions of people believe what they read and what they are told by the news media. A healthy dose of distrust would serve the global populace well, if only it could release itself from the grip of mainstream corporate news.

In this respect, it’s worth remembering two quotes from the incomparable muckraker Upton Sinclair–author of the startling expose The Jungle.

In his book The Brass Check, Sinclair betrays the great lie of modern media, namely that it is independent. This easy falsehood is widely accepted. Millions of Americans believe that the truly deceitful media are the ones that YouTube labels as “state-affiliated media,” a damning modifier that instantly discredits every outlet so identified.

But Sinclair reminds us that “[Media] represents private interests, not public interests.” He could have gone farther and said mainstream media represents the private interests of elite capital. Marx said that every state serves a particular class. So does corporate media.

Sinclair later writes that, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

This second quote explains why so much of the MSM go along quite happily with the prescribed narrative from Washington. Their livelihoods depend on it. Occasionally a pious mainstream journalist will fiercely declare his independence from any malign editorial influence.

But as Michael Parenti responds,

“They like what you write because you write what they like.”

The principles of American exceptionalism are a prerequisite for any journalist hoping to earn a slot at a high-paying MSM outlet. They have long internalized the values of power. Put together, these quotes tell us that we are subjected to an official narrative that serves the interests of elite capital and is dutifully disseminated by a cabal of right-thinking stenographers.

The same elite interests that own the government own the media. Hence the narrative consistency.

ALTERNATE REALITY

Given that elite interests are largely out of step with the interests of the vast majority of Americans, we often find ourselves living in an alternate reality. The war in Ukraine is just the latest iteration. Most of the reality of the conflict has been obscured from view, sins of omission that ensure the public is largely misled. Fierce and ‘principled’ op-eds reinforce the bias. For instance, little attention is paid to:

Economic motivations underlying the conflict: arms sales for American defense contractors; oil and grain profits by crisis-oriented commodity monopolies; and broader agricultural profiteering by Monsanto and Dupont via a post-coup IMF agreement; the foreclosure of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from the Baltic Sea into Germany, which opens the door to western consortiums supplying the shortfall.

Ukrainian academic Olga Baysha gave a telling interview to The Gray Zone. She noted how Volodymyr Zelensky’s neoliberal policies were sold as “westernization” and “modernization” to the Ukrainian public. But these were camouflage for privatization, deregulation, and downsizing of the public sphere, all commonplace neoliberal prescriptions for wealth extraction by global corporations. To secure this narrative, Zelensky shuttered opposition media channels and political parties, including sanctions and repression before the final step.

Zelensky was following the post-coup government’s deployment of ultranationalist battalions to violently extinguish the anti-coup resistance in Donbas. That “anti-terrorist operation” was really the beginning of a civil war by Kiev against its own population, including tanks and artillery, gunships and warplanes. The subsequent Minsk peace agreements were likewise largely ignored by the aggressive Kiev action against the East.

All of these political and national conflicts seem to evolve from—and devolve into—imperial economic relations. West against East, with Ukraine as a battleground. War is a revenue stream in capitalism. War is a profit center for the elites that own the media; it is only carnage for the lower classes. This distinction is rarely made.

WHY SOCIAL MEDIA HAS ABDICATED ITS ROLE

What is relatively unique in the propaganda about the Ukraine war is the degree to which social media has advanced its repressive apparatus in line with state directives. Social media became a serious thorn in the side of state power and corporate media when it consistently exposed falsehoods about the 2016 election, Russiagate, and the pandemic.

Though much war propaganda has been uncovered by scrupulous independent journalists (with a working class bias), the success of the Ukrainian narrative has been stupendous. Social media is falling in line, censoring or discrediting wrongthink whenever it appears.

What Google and YouTube and others are doing at the behest of the federal government is as Brett Weinstein said of the pandemic narrative, “They are infantilizing a huge fraction of the population. They are making certain discussions off limits.” We must “…adhere to certain pre-digested conclusions and we pretend that they emerged from evidence, which they do not.”

What we need is rational discussion. The answer to bad speech is more speech, not less. One would expect Google and YouTube and Facebook and Twitter to know this. In fact, it is very likely they do know this. As the venerable linguist politico Noam Chomsky once derisively commented, there’s no point in speaking truth to power: they already know the truth, and don’t care.

What has happened is what happens to all new media in a corporate fascist state: it is threatened until it complies with the official narrative being disseminated by the government, which is effectively owned by elite capital. Congress may have a word with Justice, and Justice may on a quiet Tuesday open the preliminaries of an antitrust investigation.

Suddenly the bright horizons of the Silicon giants are considerably dimmed. It is similar with the news media. The MSM rely too heavily on the gossip and good favor of well-placed officials; they bend too easily to the unspoken preferences of the advertisers who line their coffers; they keel too readily at the unctuous general who cavils over the soft treatment of a geopolitical rival. These perverse incentives are nicely modeled in Manufacturing Consent.

Elite capital may be loosely defined as those groups that are making enormous amounts of money off the status quo, even as many more millions are harmed by the same status quo. Elite capital used to be called “special interests.”

They are the rich and powerful billionaires who can be seen at Davos, on the boards and membership lists of the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Clinton Foundation; the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations; and in important think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institute, RAND Corporation, Cato, Hoover, CSIS, and Center for American Progress, among a proliferation of others.

They are thus not a monolithic or discrete coalition of individuals, but rather intertwined interests that share a common desire to uphold the existing establishment, by force or fraud.

MASTERS OF MYTH

Our current experience—in which we are terrifically afraid of a mild seasonal respiratory virus and terrifically xenophobic toward Russians—is reminiscent of the heyday of the Bush administration, when the neoconservative believers were riding high on a surfeit of manufactured intelligence.

Abetted by the ghoulish founder of Blairism, who claimed kindly London burghers might be liquidated by Arab WMDs in just 45 minutes. From launch to impact. From Baghdad missile shed to Kensington glade in less than an hour. Around that frightful time, George Bush’s svengali Karl Rove, educated a stunned reporter about what reality truly meant at the Metropole, in the imperium itself,

We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

That reality is what Henry Giroux called, “…the deadening unity and totalizing narratives that now marks dominant neoliberal and instrumental ideologies of the West.”

More than any moment in recent American history, we find ourselves under the spell of these reality makers, who have over the past five years produced a breathtaking array of crises that have utterly enthralled the population.

From the stunning election of a reeling madman, to chilling revelations of foreign influence, feckless investigations, failed impeachments, lethal pathogens launched from fog-draped bio labs in polluted Sino capitals, and finally to the good news of a redemptive election, only to be circumscribed by fatal new “variants” spread by pathologically stupid Trumpists.

And finally, the plague is swept from the marquee by Russian imperialism on the march in Europe. The masses automatically swap their masks for Ukrainian flags. The fear and anger remain, but are merely redirected.

WAGE SLAVERY AND PUBLIC CONSCIOUSNESS

The indoctrination of individuals into the doctrinal system of American exceptionalism is driven not only by media consolidation but also economic enslavement. First a couple of figures—as if we need more—from a John Steppling’s essay on his Aesthetic Resistance blog. He notes that in 1870 some 67 percent of Americans were self-employed, probably artisans or farmers of some kind.

Once industrial capitalism particularly in urban areas grew, that number plummeted. Today it stands at 6 percent. The point being that the independence of millions of Americans has been compromised. Now they work—millions of them—not for themselves but for vast faceless corporations.

Companies that are essentially fascist constructs, whose decisions are inscrutable to most employees, and which typically sweep the scythe of cost cutting through the ranks every few years, and increasingly turn to automated processes that are merely overseen by an incrementally deskilled workforce.

This alienation from our own work was not unaccompanied by attendent catastrophes. Alongside the vast migration of men and women into wage labor came first a rise and then a fierce destruction of union representation. That too stands at around 7 percent today, once as high as 35 percent in the early to mid 20th century, when there were socialists roaming the untamed streets and word of a Bolshevik Revolution rippled through bourgeois mansions.

The currents of the time were not overlooked by the managers of the economy. The bankers bought the papers. The president created a commission for public information. The business roundtable sketched anti-labor plot lines. Sigmund Freud’s nephew invented the dark arts of public relations.

A similar phenomenon occurred after the cultural explosion of the Sixties. The neoliberal rollback of the so-called welfare state on one hand (happily embraced by hippies as they tossed aside their tasseled suede for wide lapels and polyester pantsuits) and the co-optation of counterculture on the other.

As hippies reproduced, they found themselves suddenly needing the money on offer from the corporate monoliths they once defaced the logos of. No longer able to sustain themselves as village artisans or independent producers, they succumbed to the economic pressures and joined the rat race.

Madison Avenue, a Cyclopean beast capable of the most astonishing mimetic performances, quickly absorbed the counterculture and regurgitated rebellion as offbeat consumerism.

Everything became a style code. Facing down a lynch mob or jackbooted police cordon was replaced with wearing Chuck Conners sneakers, running marathons in ‘Just Do It’ Nikes, or donning a Coca-Cola tee shirt with a sardonic grin. At the radical end of the spectrum, burning draft cards were replaced with ‘buy nothing’ anti-consumer holidays.

Irony supplants resistance, a concession of the educated classes to the diminished prospects for revolution.

And so, having been alienated from their work, having had their counterculture killed, gutted, dressed, and stuffed, the average person has little recourse for independent thinking. At work, he is conditioned by a corporate culture that esteems ‘yes men’, pathologizes optimism, and encourages virtue signaling on behalf of the corporate charter, the values of which one is welcome to adopt as one’s own.

Away from the office, he encounters an ersatz ‘culture’ of media news and entertainment that reifies the values of the corporate state, which ostensibly include diversity, multiculturalism, and inclusion. The news instantiates the tropes of the corporate news hour, which feature the sly demonization of other societies under the guise of national security and the banner of freedom.

Then entertainment reinforces them. One reads of new sanctions levied against a rogue regime in Caracas, and then watches a new action series on Netflix in which an earnest American thwarts a diabolical scheme by the brown Venezuelan with an unquenchable thirst for yanquee blood.

IDEOLOGIES AND SUB-IDEOLOGIES

But should one spy the troubling contradictions between our professed values of inclusion and our foreign policy of exclusion, there is nowhere to turn. Unless one knows about marginalized progressive websites, Noam Chomsky primers, or a nearby Communist Meet Up, one is left with the cardboard caricatures of corporate media, which go to great lengths to convince you those contradictions are all a misunderstanding—your own, to be sure.

Without ‘comrades’ to confirm your natural mistrust, it will tend to fade as the omnipresent corporate conditioning takes over.

Louis Althusser, the French Marxist philosopher, wrote that we are all conditioned by the Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) and repressed by Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs). He said we are ‘interpellated’ by the ISAs into the helpful groupthink that sustains the status quo. Perhaps to keep his readers from guzzling Drano, he did concede that ‘interventions’ were possible in which a sub-ideology breaks through a crack in the dominant ideology.

What this intervention produces, though, is indeterminate. A riotous uprising that is brutally put down by some frightful caudillo general? Whose leaders are liquidated in the bowels of some rusting soccer stadium held over from the Pan Am Games? Or perhaps the glorious, dreamed of Revolution (capital ‘R’) that guts the capitalist oligarchy, assumes its productive forces, and achieves a breathtaking synthesis of revolutionary theory and worker power? The pipe-puffing Althusser declined to say.

REALITY REPEATS ITSELF: AMOR FATI?

It is no surprise when we see such little resistance in the population to the supplying of $40 billion in lethal aid to Ukraine, or to aggressive authoritarian mandates of the government regarding the pandemic. For all of the aforementioned reasons, the dominant response is unquestioning compliance and even gratitude.

After all, having never been taught the past, or having deliberately compartmentalized those troubling histories, we digest the official narrative like a child accepts the spoonfuls of baby food from a doting mother. Tens of millions of doses of soma shoveled down the hatch at daybreak or dusk, or both, do their numbing best to aid and abet digestion of those sometimes thorny narratives, so thick with intrigue and, not occasionally, senselessness. The reward of the incurious is consensus.

Within the official narratives themselves, there is at least one constant: the demonization of the other. We can easily see parallels in the gross caricature of unvaccinated individuals as pathogenic threats in need of the needle and the demonization of Russians as barbaric hordes in need of European refinements.

These depictions are not far from the efforts of German National Socialists to segregate non-Aryans, mostly of Jewish origin, from the righteous population of pure-blood Volk. Yet one needn’t leave one’s own history to see this blatant segregationist behavior. The dark era of Jim Crow, and the modern version of the carceral state, evince the deep hostility of society for the other, those that differ in skin color, sex, gender, sexual preference, religion, ideology, economic model, or worldview.

Edward Said notes in Orientalism how the western Orientalist needed to whittle down Islam to the caricature of “tent and tribe” in order to fit it into his orderly cosmology, in which the rationalism of the European Enlightenment prevailed. Today the West performs the same reductionist act on Eurasia.

Reclining in his sumptuous country estate, the elitist Marquis tells Charles Darnay in A Tale of Two Cities, “Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery…will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof shuts out the sky.”

Like Sinclair, Charles Dickens historicized his novels, and it might be noted that the Marquis’ venerable roof would soon fall with the collapsing scenery of the French Revolution. Whenever we are sold those confident, end-of-history tales from the corridors of elite power—be it a French chateau or a chalet in the Swiss Alps—we’d do well to recall the timeless warning of every marketplace and bazaar: caveat emptor.

Creating consensus on Ukraine

Posted on June 8, 2022 by Reid Mukai

By Rick Staggenborg, MD

Source: OpEdNews.com

The antiwar community has fractured at a time when it most needs to speak with one voice to end the war in Ukraine. About all we can agree on is that the war is a terrible thing that needs to be stopped. Beyond that, reasonable people disagree about messaging, and unreasonable people demonize those who disagree. The result is that average Americans who don’t usually follow politics, let alone international affairs, form opinions based on emotional responses to what they hear in mainstream media rather than what may be most likely to promote peace. This is true despite the fact that most would say that peace is what they want.

The ability to influence American thinking through emotional appeals is what those with the power to manipulate the media count on to serve imperialism’s aims. If we can at least agree that how we frame our response is important, people who sincerely want to do something to end the war might be able to agree on what message would most effectively sway public opinion in a way that might influence our government to act in the interest of peace.

The most fundamental disagreement is over whether it’s necessary to call Russia out as solely or even primarily at fault for the war, or whether it is important to provide the context needed to understand the US role in creating the conditions that led it to decide that it had no choice but to respond to Ukrainian actions in Donbass with military force.

Given that our goal is to influence public opinion, it’s understandable that most peace groups have opted to follow the lead of politicians and mainstream commentators and preface every statement with a condemnation of Russia. After all, since they believe these accusations are justified, they fear being seen as supportive of Russia if they only focus on what the US has done that promotes war and what it hasn’t done that might have prevented it. Some peace groups go so far as to ignore clear US provocations as unimportant. Since it was Russia that invaded, they believe that their proper job is to wave Ukrainian flags and protest Russia’s actions, despite the reality that this will have no beneficial effect on the course of the war.

Other peace activists feel that either approach absolves the US of responsibility for creating conditions that led to the conflict. Believing the US actually initiated the conflict, they argue that dating its onset as February 24 is not only misleading, but false. They see the conflict as having started long before the Russian invasion and argue that knowing what choices Putin had is relevant to assigning blame.

The truth is that we don’t have to agree on who is at fault if we don’t make that an issue. As a psychotherapist with training in family therapy, I know from experience that focusing on who is responsible for a problem almost never leads to a satisfactory solution. And from a practical standpoint, placing sole blame on Russia is counterproductive not only because it splits the antiwar movement, but because to much of the public it provides a justification for an aggressive US response. Avoiding a conflict over whether Russia should be characterized as the sole aggressor is why many want to limit the message to demanding that the US
1) stop arming Ukraine, 2) declare it will never support Ukraine joining NATO, and 3) push Ukraine to negotiate without preconditions.

From a family therapy perspective, trying to keep the discussion focused on a solution would certainly be the approach to take if the US actually wanted to end the conflict. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case. The effect of sending increasingly lethal weapons and imposing sanctions that primarily harm civilians is to prolong the war and increase casualties of both soldiers and civilians on both sides.

Recent reports indicate that the effort to help a depleted Ukrainian military drive Russia out of Donbass is futile. However, this approach is very profitable for a weapons industry that generously funds the elections of members of Congress willing to serve its interests, which is no doubt why any debate about how the US should proceed assumes that it will involve continuing a strategy that has proven to result in arming extremists when used in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. And yes, there are extremists with significant influence in Ukraine despite media denials.

Clearly, the focus on providing weapons has redirected the public’s attention from the question of how to end the war to how best to punish Russia, regardless of how US strategy affect Ukrainian civilians. This is not by accident, but by design. That’s why it is necessary to challenge the distortions, omissions and outright lies that are used to influence public opinion to conform with the goals of American imperialism. Unfortunately, the inability to agree on the facts is what has led to the stark divisions among those wanting to do something to make the war to end. That is we have to put aside our pride and listen to each other to understand why a minority firmly believes that the consensus opinion of the majority is based on misplaced trust in mainstream media.

Most Americans think they are informed if they read mainstream media and watch a variety of TV news sources. Antiwar activists know differently, because we know we have been lied into war repeatedly, at least from Vietnam through Syria. Unfortunately, like the general public, many peace proponents have no idea how information that challenges the government’s narrative is being systematically suppressed in unprecedented ways.

It’s always been true that truth is the first casualty of war. In today’s hybrid warfare, it is more critical than ever to control the information domain. The way news is presented by government officials and approved media frames the way most people think about US foreign policy. This is why the idea of sending ever more powerful weapons to prolong a military conflict that cannot be won is never challenged. While the ultimate outcome of Russia’s invasion cannot be predicted with certainty, the one thing we know for sure is that providing increasingly lethal weaponry will lead to more death on both sides and do nothing to promote stability in the region.

Of course, there is much more that could be said about the tremendous amount of disinformation in the mainstream media regarding Ukraine. While much of it is relevant to understanding the situation, it is far beyond the scope of this essay. I can only recommend that those who are inclined to believe what they read or hear in government-approved media look at any of the credible alternative sources that present evidence of critical facts that are being withheld from them.

A good way to find them is to look at the list of websites that Prop or Not, a shadowy group that claims to be the arbiter of “reliable sources,” claims should not be trusted. Interspersed among many dubious websites listed are some of the most informative sources of information contradicting the mainstream narrative. These are sites with authors that include prominent investigative journalists and veterans of the CIA, NSA, State Department, high ranking White House positions and military intelligence. They cite their sources, which gives their articles far more credibility than the mostly anonymous sources favored by the New York Times and Washington Post when reporting on many of the same stories.

I urge anyone interested in finding a common message to present to the public to read the statement released by the US Peace Council.

The Subtleties of Anti-Russia Leftist Rhetoric

Posted on June 6, 2022 by Reid Mukai

By Edward Curtin

Source: Behind the Curtain

While the so-called liberal and conservative corporate mainstream media – all stenographers for the intelligence agencies – pour forth the most blatant propaganda about Russia and Ukraine that is so conspicuous that it is comedic if it weren’t so dangerous, the self-depicted cognoscenti also ingest subtler messages, often from the alternative media.

A woman I know and who knows my sociological analyses of propaganda contacted me to tell me there was an excellent article about the war in Ukraine at The Intercept, an on-line publication funded by billionaire Pierre Omidyar I have long considered a leading example of much deceptive reporting wherein truth is mixed with falsehoods to convey a “liberal” narrative that fundamentally supports the ruling elites while seeming to oppose them. This, of course, is nothing new since it’s been the modus operandi of all corporate media in their own ideological and disingenuous ways, such as The New York Times, CBS, the Washington Post, the New York Daily News, Fox News, CNN, NBC, etc. for a very long time.

Nevertheless, out of respect for her judgment and knowing how deeply she feels for all suffering people, I read the article. Written by Alice Speri, its title sounded ambiguous – “The Left in Europe Confronts NATO’s Resurgence After Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine” – until I saw the subtitle that begins with these words: “Russia’s brutal invasion complicates…” But I read on. By the fourth paragraph, it became clear where this article was going. Speri writes that “In Ukraine, by contrast [with Iraq], it was Russia that had staged an illegal, unprovoked invasion, and U.S.-led support to Ukraine was understood by many as crucial to stave off even worse atrocities than those the Russian military had already committed.” [my emphasis]

While ostensibly about European anti-war and anti-NATO activists caught on the horns of a dilemma, the piece goes on to assert that although US/NATO was guilty of wrongful expansion over many years, Russia has been an aggressor in Ukraine and Georgia and is guilty of terrible war crimes, etc.

There is not a word about the U.S. engineered coup in 2014, the CIA and Pentagon backed mercenaries in Ukraine, or its support for the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and Ukraine’s years of attacks on the Donbass where many thousands have been killed. It is assumed these actions are not criminal or provocative. And there is this:

The uncertain response of Europe’s peace activists is both a reflection of a brutal, unprovoked invasion that stunned the world and of an anti-war movement that has grown smaller and more marginalized over the years. The left in both Europe and the U.S. have struggled to respond to a wave of support for Ukraine that is at cross purposes with a decades long effort to untangle Europe from a U.S.-led military alliance. [my emphasis]

In other words, the article, couched in anti-war rhetoric, was anti-Russia propaganda. When I told my friend my analysis, she refused to discuss it and got angry with me, as if I therefore were a proponent of war. I have found this is a common response.

This got me thinking again about why people so often miss the untruths lying within articles that are in many parts truthful and accurate. I notice this constantly. They are like little seeds slipped in as if no one will notice; they work their magic nearly unconsciously. Few do notice them, for they are often imperceptible. But they have their effects and are cumulative and are far more powerful over time than blatant statements that will turn people off, especially those who think propaganda doesn’t work on them. This is the power of successful propaganda, whether purposeful or not. It particularly works well on “intellectual” and highly schooled people.

For example, in a recent printed interview, Noam Chomsky, after being introduced as a modern day Galileo, Newton, and Descartes rolled into one, talks about propaganda, its history, Edward Bernays, Walter Lippman, etc. What he says is historically accurate and informative for anyone not knowing this history. He speaks wisely of U.S. media propaganda concerning its unprovoked war against Iraq and he accurately calls the war in Ukraine “provoked.” And then, concerning the war in Ukraine, he drops this startling statement:

I don’t think there are ‘significant lies’ in war reporting. The U.S. media are generally doing a highly creditable job in reporting Russian crimes in Ukraine. That’s valuable, just as it’s valuable that international investigations are underway in preparation for possible war crimes trials.

In the blink of an eye, Chomsky says something so incredibly untrue that unless one thinks of him as a modern day Galileo, which many do, it may pass as true and you will smoothly move on to the next paragraph. Yet it is a statement so false as to be laughable. The media propaganda concerning events in Ukraine has been so blatantly false and ridiculous that a careful reader will stop suddenly and think: Did he just say that?

So now Chomsky views the media, such as The New York Times and its ilk, that he has correctly castigated for propagandizing for the U.S. in Iraq and East Timor, to use two examples, is doing “a highly creditable job in reporting Russian crimes in Ukraine,” as if suddenly they were no longer spokespeople for the CIA and U.S. disinformation. And he says this when we are in the midst of the greatest propaganda blitz since WW I, with its censorship, Disinformation Governance Board, de-platforming of dissidents, etc., that border on a parody of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Even slicker is his casual assertion that the media are doing a good job reporting Russia’s war crimes after he earlier has said this about propaganda:

So it continues. Particularly in the more free societies, where means of state violence have been constrained by popular activism, it is of great importance to devise methods of manufacturing consent, and to ensure that they are internalized, becoming as invisible as the air we breathe, particularly in articulate educated circles. Imposing war-myths is a regular feature of these enterprises.

This is simply masterful. Explain what propaganda is at its best and how you oppose it and then drop a soupçon of it into your analysis. And while he is at it, Chomsky makes sure to praise Chris Hedges, one of his followers, who has himself recently wrote an article – The Age of Self-Delusion – that also contains valid points appealing to those sick of wars, but which also contains the following words:

Putin’s revanchism is matched by our own.
The disorganization, ineptitude, and low morale of the Russian army conscripts, along with the repeated intelligence failures by the Russian high command, apparently convinced Russia would roll over Ukraine in a few days, exposes the lie that Russia is a global menace.
‘The Russian bear has effectively defanged itself,’ historian Andrew Bacevich writes.
But this is not a truth the war makers impart to the public. Russia must be inflated to become a global menace, despite nine weeks of humiliating military failures. [my emphasis]

Russia’s revanchism? Where? Revanchism? What lost territory has the U.S. ever waged war to recover? Iraq, Syria, Cuba, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, etc.? The U.S.’s history is a history not of revanchism but of imperial conquest, of seizing or controlling territory, while Russia’s war in Ukraine is clearly an act of self-defense after years of U.S./NATO/Ukraine provocations and threats, which Hedges recognizes. “Nine weeks of humiliating military failures”? – when they control a large section of eastern and southern Ukraine, including the Donbass. But his false message is subtly woven, like Chomsky’s, into sentences that are true.

“But this is not a truth the war makers impart to the public.” No, it is exactly what the media spokespeople for the war makers – i.e. The New York Times (Hedges former employer, which he never fails to mention and for whom he covered the Clinton administration’s savage destruction of Yugoslavia), CNN, Fox News, The Washington Post, the New York Post, etc. impart to the public every day for their masters. Headlines that read how Russia, while allegedly committing daily war crimes, is failing in its war aims and that the mythic hero Zelensky is leading Ukrainians to victory. Words to the effect that “The Russian bear has effectively defanged itself” presented as fact.

Yes, they do inflate the Russian monster myth, only to then puncture it with the myth of David defeating Goliath.

But being in the business of mind games (too much consistency leads to clarity and gives the game away), one can expect them to scramble their messages on an ongoing basis to serve the U.S. agenda in Ukraine and further NATO expansion in the undeclared war with Russia, for which the Ukrainian people will be sacrificed.

Orwell called it “doublethink”:

Doublethink lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty.To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality one denies – all this is indispensably necessary….with the lie always one step ahead of the truth.

Revealing while concealing and interjecting inoculating shots of untruths that will only get cursory attention from their readers, the writers mentioned here and others have great appeal for the left intelligentsia. For people who basically worship those they have imbued with infallibility and genius, it is very hard to read all sentences carefully and smell a skunk. The subterfuge is often very adroit and appeals to readers’ sense of outrage at what happened in the past – e.g. the George W. Bush administration’s lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Chomsky, of course, is the leader of the pack, and his followers are legion, including Hedges. For decades they have been either avoiding or supporting the official versions of the assassinations of JFK and RFK, the attacks of September 11, 2001 that led directly to the war on terror and so many wars of aggression,and the recent Covid-19 propaganda with its devastating lockdowns and crackdowns on civil liberties. They are far from historical amnesiacs, of course, but obviously consider these foundational events of no importance, for otherwise they would have addressed them. If you expect them to explain, you will be waiting a long time.

In a recent article – How the organized Left got Covid wrong, learned to love lockdowns and lost its mind: an autopsy – Christian Parenti writes this about Chomsky:

Almost the entire left intelligentsia has remained psychically stuck in March 2020. Its members have applauded the new biosecurity repression and calumniated as liars, grifters, and fascists any and all who dissented. Typically, they did so without even engaging evidence and while shirking public debate. Among the most visible in this has been Noam Chomsky, the self-described anarcho-syndicalist who called for the unvaccinated to “remove themselves from society,” and suggested that they should be allowed to go hungry if they refuse to submit.

Parenti’s critique of the left’s response (not just Chomsky’s and Hedges’) to Covid also applies to those foundational events mentioned above, which raises deeper questions about the CIA’s and NSA’s penetration of the media in general, a subject beyond the scope of this analysis.

For those, like the liberal woman who referred me to The Intercept article, who would no doubt say of what I have written here: Why are you picking on leftists? my reply is quite simple.

The right-wing and the neocons are obvious in their pernicious agendas; nothing is really hidden; therefore they can and should be opposed. But many leftists serve two masters and are far subtler. Ostensibly on the side of regular people and opposed to imperialism and the predations of the elites at home and abroad, they are often tricksters of beguiling rhetoric that their followers miss. Rhetoric that indirectly fuels the wars they say they oppose.

Smelling skunks is not as obvious as it might seem. Being nocturnal, they come forth when most are sleeping.

No Way Out but War

Posted on May 31, 2022 by Reid Mukai

Permanent war has cannibalized the country. It has created a social, political, and economic morass. Each new military debacle is another nail in the coffin of Pax Americana.

By Chris Hedges

Source: ScheerPost

The United States, as the near unanimous vote to provide nearly $40 billion in aid to Ukraine illustrates, is trapped in the death spiral of unchecked militarism. No high speed trains. No universal health care. No viable Covid relief program. No respite from 8.3 percent inflation. No infrastructure programs to repair decaying roads and bridges, which require $41.8 billion to fix the 43,586 structurally deficient bridges, on average 68 years old. No forgiveness of $1.7 trillion in student debt. No addressing income inequality. No program to feed the 17 million children who go to bed each night hungry. No rational gun control or curbing of the epidemic of nihilistic violence and mass shootings. No help for the 100,000 Americans who die each year of drug overdoses. No minimum wage of $15 an hour to counter 44 years of wage stagnation. No respite from gas prices that are projected to hit $6 a gallon.

The permanent war economy, implanted since the end of World War II, has destroyed the private economy, bankrupted the nation, and squandered trillions of dollars of taxpayer money. The monopolization of capital by the military has driven the US debt to $30 trillion, $ 6 trillion more than the US GDP of $ 24 trillion. Servicing this debt costs $300 billion a year. We spent more on the military, $ 813 billion for fiscal year 2023, than the next nine countries, including China and Russia, combined.

We are paying a heavy social, political, and economic cost for our militarism. Washington watches passively as the U.S. rots, morally, politically, economically, and physically, while China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, and other countries extract themselves from the tyranny of the U.S. dollar and the international Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), a messaging network banks and other financial institutions use to send and receive information, such as money transfer instructions. Once the U.S. dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency, once there is an alternative to SWIFT, it will precipitate an internal economic collapse. It will force the immediate contraction of the U.S. empire shuttering most of its nearly 800 overseas military installations. It will signal the death of Pax Americana.

Democrat or Republican. It does not matter. War is the raison d’état of the state. Extravagant military expenditures are justified in the name of “national security.” The nearly $40 billion allocated for Ukraine, most of it going into the hands of weapons manufacturers such as Raytheon Technologies, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing, is only the beginning. Military strategists, who say the war will be long and protracted, are talking about infusions of $4 or $5 billion in military aid a month to Ukraine. We face existential threats. But these do not count. The proposed budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in fiscal year 2023 is $10.675 billion. The proposed budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is $11.881 billion. Ukraine alone gets more than double that amount. Pandemics and the climate emergency are afterthoughts. War is all that matters. This is a recipe for collective suicide.

There were three restraints to the avarice and bloodlust of the permanent war economy that no longer exist. The first was the old liberal wing of the Democratic Party, led by politicians such as Senator George McGovern, Senator Eugene McCarthy, and Senator J. William Fulbright, who wrote The Pentagon Propaganda Machine. The self-identified progressives, a pitiful minority, in Congress today, from Barbara Lee, who was the single vote in the House and the Senate opposing a broad, open-ended authorization allowing the president to wage war in Afghanistan or anywhere else, to Ilhan Omar now dutifully line up to fund the latest proxy war. The second restraint was an independent media and academia, including journalists such as I.F Stone and Neil Sheehan along with scholars such as Seymour Melman, author of The Permanent War Economy and Pentagon Capitalism: The Political Economy of War. Third, and perhaps most important, was an organized anti-war movement, led by religious leaders such as Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr. and Phil and Dan Berrigan as well as groups such as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). They understood that unchecked militarism was a fatal disease.

None of these opposition forces, which did not reverse the permanent war economy but curbed its excesses, now exist. The two ruling parties have been bought by corporations, especially military contractors. The press is anemic and obsequious to the war industry. Propagandists for permanent war, largely from right-wing think tanks lavishly funded by the war industry, along with former military and intelligence officials, are exclusively quoted or interviewed as military experts. NBC’s “Meet the Press” aired a segment May 13 where officials from Center for a New American Security (CNAS) simulated what a war with China over Taiwan might look like. The co-founder of CNAS, Michèle Flournoy, who appeared in the “Meet the Press” war games segment and was considered by Biden to run the Pentagon, wrote in 2020 in Foreign Affairs that the U.S. needs to develop “the capability to credibly threaten to sink all of China’s military vessels, submarines and merchant ships in the South China Sea within 72 hours.”

The handful of anti-militarists and critics of empire from the left, such as Noam Chomsky, and the right, such as Ron Paul, have been declared persona non grata by a compliant media. The liberal class has retreated into boutique activism where issues of class, capitalism and militarism are jettisoned for “cancel culture,” multiculturalism and identity politics. Liberals are cheerleading the war in Ukraine. At least the inception of the war with Iraq saw them join significant street protests. Ukraine is embraced as the latest crusade for freedom and democracy against the new Hitler. There is little hope, I fear, of rolling back or restraining the disasters being orchestrated on a national and global level. The neoconservatives and liberal interventionists chant in unison for war. Biden has appointed these war mongers, whose attitude to nuclear war is terrifyingly cavalier, to run the Pentagon, the National Security Council, and the State Department.

Since all we do is war, all proposed solutions are military. This military adventurism accelerates the decline, as the defeat in Vietnam and the squandering of $8 trillion in the futile wars in the Middle East illustrate. War and sanctions, it is believed, will cripple Russia, rich in gas and natural resources. War, or the threat of war, will curb the growing economic and military clout of China.

These are demented and dangerous fantasies, perpetrated by a ruling class that has severed itself from reality. No longer able to salvage their own society and economy, they seek to destroy those of their global competitors, especially Russia and China. Once the militarists cripple Russia, the plan goes, they will focus military aggression on the Indo-Pacific, dominating what Hillary Clinton as secretary of state, referring to the Pacific, called “the American Sea.”

You cannot talk about war without talking about markets. The U.S., whose growth rate has fallen to below 2 percent, while China’s growth rate is 8.1 percent, has turned to military aggression to bolster its sagging economy. If the U.S. can sever Russian gas supplies to Europe, it will force Europeans to buy from the United States. U.S. firms, at the same time, would be happy to replace the Chinese Communist Party, even if they must do it through the threat of war, to open unfettered access to Chinese markets. War, if it did break out with China, would devastate the Chinese, American, and global economies, destroying free trade between countries as in World War I. But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.

Washington is desperately trying to build military and economic alliances to ward off a rising China, whose economy is expected by 2028 to overtake that of the United States, according to the UK’s Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). The White House has said Biden’s current visit to Asia is about sending a “powerful message” to Beijing and others about what the world could look like if democracies “stand together to shape the rules of the road.” The Biden administration has invited South Korea and Japan to attend the NATO summit in Madrid.

But fewer and fewer nations, even among European allies, are willing to be dominated by the United States. Washington’s veneer of democracy and supposed respect for human rights and civil liberties is so badly tarnished as to be irrecoverable. Its economic decline, with China’s manufacturing 70 percent higher than that of the U.S., is irreversible. War is a desperate Hail Mary, one employed by dying empires throughout history with catastrophic consequences. “It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable,” Thucydides noted in the History of the Peloponnesian War.

A key component to the sustenance of the permanent war state was the creation of the All-Volunteer Force. Without conscripts, the burden of fighting wars falls to the poor, the working class, and military families. This All-Volunteer Force allows the children of the middle class, who led the Vietnam anti-war movement, to avoid service. It protects the military from internal revolts, carried out by troops during the Vietnam War, which jeopardized the cohesion of the armed forces.

The All-Volunteer Force, by limiting the pool of available troops, also makes the global ambitions of the militarists impossible. Desperate to maintain or increase troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, the military instituted the stop-loss policy that arbitrarily extended active-duty contracts. Its slang term was the backdoor draft. The effort to bolster the number of troops by hiring private military contractors, as well, had a negligible effect. Increased troop levels would not have won the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but the tiny percentage of those willing to serve in the military (only 7 percent of the U.S. population are veterans) is an unacknowledged Achilles heel for the militarists.

“As a consequence, the problem of too much war and too few soldiers eludes serious scrutiny,” writes historian and retired Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich in After the Apocalypse: America’s Role in a World Transformed. “Expectations of technology bridging that gap provide an excuse to avoid asking the most fundamental questions: Does the United States possess the military wherewithal to oblige adversaries to endorse its claim of being history’s indispensable nation? And if the answer is no, as the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq suggest, wouldn’t it make sense for Washington to temper its ambitions accordingly?”

This question, as Bacevich points out, is “anathema.” The military strategists work from the supposition that the coming wars won’t look anything like past wars. They invest in imaginary theories of future wars that ignore the lessons of the past, ensuring more fiascos.

The political class is as self-deluded as the generals. It refuses to accept the emergence of a multi-polar world and the palpable decline of American power. It speaks in the outdated language of American exceptionalism and triumphalism, believing it has the right to impose its will as the leader of the “free world.” In his 1992 Defense Planning Guidance memorandum, U.S. Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz argued that the U.S. must ensure no rival superpower again arises. The U.S. should project its military strength to dominate a unipolar world in perpetuity. On February 19, 1998, on NBC’s “Today Show”, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gave the Democratic version of this doctrine of unipolarity. “If we have to use force it is because we are Americans; we are the indispensable nation,” she said. “We stand tall, and we see further than other countries into the future.”

This demented vision of unrivaled U.S. global supremacy, not to mention unrivaled goodness and virtue, blinds the establishment Republicans and Democrats. The military strikes they casually used to assert the doctrine of unipolarity, especially in the Middle East, swiftly spawned jihadist terror and prolonged warfare. None of them saw it coming until the hijacked jets slammed into the World Trade Center twin towers. That they cling to this absurd hallucination is the triumph of hope over experience.

There is a deep loathing among the public for these elitist Ivy League architects of American imperialism. Imperialism was tolerated when it was able to project power abroad and produce rising living standards at home. It was tolerated when it restrained itself to covert interventions in countries such as Iran, Guatemala, and Indonesia. It went off the rails in Vietnam. The military defeats that followed accompanied a steady decline in living standards, wage stagnation, a crumbling infrastructure and eventually a series of economic policies and trade deals, orchestrated by the same ruling class, which deindustrialized and impoverished the country.

The establishment oligarchs, now united in the Democratic Party, distrust Donald Trump. He commits the heresy of questioning the sanctity of the American empire. Trump derided the invasion of Iraq as a “big, fat mistake.” He promised “to keep us out of endless war.” Trump was repeatedly questioned about his relationship with Vladimir Putin. Putin was “a killer,” one interviewer told him. “There are a lot of killers,” Trump retorted. “You think our country’s so innocent?” Trump dared to speak a truth that was to be forever unspoken, the militarists had sold out the American people.

Noam Chomsky took some heat for pointing out, correctly, that Trump is the “one statesman” who has laid out a “sensible” proposition to resolve the Russia-Ukraine crisis. The proposed solution included “facilitating negotiations instead of undermining them and moving toward establishing some kind of accommodation in Europe…in which there are no military alliances but just mutual accommodation.”

Trump is too unfocused and mercurial to offer serious policy solutions. He did set a timetable to withdraw from Afghanistan, but he also ratcheted up the economic war against Venezuela and reinstituted crushing sanctions against Cuba and Iran, which the Obama administration had ended. He increased the military budget. He apparently flirted with carrying out a missile strike on Mexico to “destroy the drug labs.” But he acknowledges a distaste for imperial mismanagement that resonates with the public, one that has every right to loath the smug mandarins that plunge us into one war after another. Trump lies like he breathes. But so do they.

The 57 Republicans who refused to support the $40 billion aid package to Ukraine, along with many of the 19 bills that included an earlier $13.6 billion in aid for Ukraine, come out of the kooky conspiratorial world of Trump. They, like Trump, repeat this heresy. They too are attacked and censored. But the longer Biden and the ruling class continue to pour resources into war at our expense, the more these proto fascists, already set to wipe out Democratic gains in the House and the Senate this fall, will be ascendant. Marjorie Taylor Greene, during the debate on the aid package to Ukraine, which most members were not given time to closely examine, said: “$40 billion dollars but there’s no baby formula for American mothers and babies.”

“An unknown amount of money to the CIA and Ukraine supplemental bill but there’s no formula for American babies,” she added. “Stop funding regime change and money laundering scams. A US politician covers up their crimes in countries like Ukraine.”

Democrat Jamie Raskin immediately attacked Greene for parroting the propaganda of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Greene, like Trump, spoke a truth that resonates with a beleaguered public. The opposition to permanent war should have come from the tiny progressive wing of the Democratic Party, which unfortunately sold out to the craven Democratic Party leadership to save their political careers. Greene is demented, but Raskin and the Democrats peddle their own brand of lunacy. We are going to pay a very steep price for this burlesque.

So How Serious is Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Romance?

Posted on May 30, 2022 by Reid Mukai

By Cynthia Chung

Source: The Saker

In the history of civilization, Politics has more often than not, been a matter reduceable to the question of “whose side are you on?”

Granted it is not an easy affair to discern what most-nearly approaches truth in the fog of “the present.” Hindsight is 20/20 they say, although that is also not entirely true, for the interpretation of history is just another battlefield, albeit in much slower motion.

In a world of increased division, where we are told there is only black or white, the best we mere “civilians” can hope for is to not get hit by the crossfire. However, that is becoming increasingly harder to do.

It is not a matter of holding “opinion” any longer, it is about upholding a “conviction,” not earned with your own personal scrutiny and research, but by your “faith” in such a conviction and the authorities who shape it.

Increasingly, it does not truly matter what the “facts” are, but the question of “whose side are you on?”

If that is what “reality” has been reduced to by those forces controlling the state, then any enemy to those forces controlling that state will be a villain, regardless of their actions, regardless of their ideology; and any ally to those forces controlling that state will be a hero, regardless of their actions, regardless of their ideology.

And thus, in our shaped reality of today, what makes a “Hero” or a “Villain” will be determined by the simple question “whose side are you on?”

If this is troubling to you, I suggest we do a little exercise together. Let us dare to discern the “facts” for ourselves. Only then, will we cease being mere cheerleaders for a team; only then, can we qualify ourselves to ask in all honest sincerity, “whose side are we truly on?”

Are Nazis Now the New “Good Guys”?

There is a bit of mixed messaging that has been going on, especially in the last few weeks. Are there significant numbers of Nazis in Ukraine and are these “bad” or “good” Nazis in the context that they are fighting the Russian “invaders”?

In one breath we hear the counter, how can there be Nazis in Ukraine when there is a Jewish President calling the shots? In another breath we hear Facebook is now allowing users to praise the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion while they are fighting Russians. In yet another breath we hear, well its complicated, Ukrainian Nationalism should be considered at the forefront of any debate, even if it overlaps with Nazi ideology.

On Feb. 27, 2022, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland held a scarf bearing the slogan “Slava Ukraini,” meaning “Glory to Ukraine,” with the “Blood and Soil” colors of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) (who collaborated with the Nazis during WWII and massacred thousands of Jews and Poles).

She then proceeded to post this picture onto her Twitter account (replacing it hours later with a picture of her without the “Blood and Soil” scarf) and accused her detractors of “reeking of Russian disinformation”. This controversial picture of Freeland was reported by Canada’s National Post.

According to Freeland’s press secretary, this was just another case of a “classic KGB disinformation smear… accusing Ukrainians and Ukrainian-Canadians of being far right extremists or fascists or Nazis,” which is a confusing statement on multiple levels.

It is not clear how this is a case of “Russian disinformation,” since the picture is indeed authentic, Freeland does not deny this. And she is indeed holding a “Blood and Soil” emblem, which originated with the Nazis, clear for everyone to see. Lastly, it is confusing as to why the Canadian government seems to be unaware that the KGB no longer exists. Are they also under the impression that the Soviet Union still exists?

Not irrelevant in all of this is the fact that Freeland’s grandfather was the chief editor of a Nazi newspaper during WWII in Galicia and that she is indeed aware of this and apparently unapologetic. Whenever she is questioned about this, she does not deny anything, but simply blames such a focus of inquiry on Russian disinformation with the intent to “destabilize Western democracies.” That is, it is not a question of what is one’s historical or ideological background, but a question of “whose side are you on?”

Interestingly, it was the Canadian newspaper “The Globe and Mail” who reported this story, titled “Freeland knew her grandfather was editor of Nazi newspaper,” thus, not a Russian publication last time I checked. And upon whom did they base such information? None other than Freeland’s own uncle, John-Paul Himka, who is now professor emeritus at the University of Alberta.

According to the Globe and Mail, Freeland was aware for more than two decades that her grandfather Michael Chomiak, was the chief editor of a Nazi newspaper that vilified Jews and supported the Nazi cause.

Globe and Mail writes:

“Krakivski Visti [Krakow News] was set up in 1940 by the German army and supervised by German intelligence officer Emil Gassert. Its printing presses and offices were confiscated by the Germans from a Jewish publisher, who was later murdered at the Belzec concentration camp.

The article titled ‘Kravivski Visti and the Jews, 1943: A contribution of Ukrainian Jewish Relations during the Second World War’ was written by Ms. Freeland’s uncle, John-Paul Himka, now professor emeritus at the University of Alberta.

In the foreword to the article, Prof. Himka credits Ms. Freeland for ‘pointing out problems and clarifications.’ Ms. Freeland has never acknowledged that her grandfather was a Nazi collaborator and suggested on Monday that the allegation was part of a Russian disinformation campaign.

In 1996, Prof. Himka wrote about Mr. Chomiak’s work for Kravivski Visti, a Ukrainian-language newspaper based in Krakow that often published anti-Jewish diatribes including ‘certain passages in some of the articles that expressed approval of what the Nazis were doing to the Jews.’” [emphasis added]

Oddly, Freeland helped to edit and clarify Prof. Himka’s article discussing her grandfather as the chief editor of a Nazi newspaper, however, refused to acknowledge her grandfather’s role publicly and accused any reference to this as part of a “Russian disinformation campaign.” According to this topsy-turvy logic, Freeland’s uncle, Prof. Himka is part of this “Russian disinformation campaign,” and she is guilty of providing assistance to this “Russian disinformation campaign,” all to ruin her political career and “destabilize Western democracies.”

Freeland also told her uncle, Prof. Himka, which is included in his article, that according to her father, her grandfather Michael Chomiak was also working to some extent with the anti-Nazi resistance. However, Prof. Himka was unable to verify this information, which he described as “fragmentary and one-sided.”

This past April, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova delivered an explosive response to Chrystia Freeland’s recent obnoxious efforts to ban Russia from all international organizations and financial institutions, revealing the real sort of work Freeland’s grandfather was in the business of. You can read the full speech here.

Then there is the strange case of NATO tweeting in celebration of international women’s day, this past March 8, a picture of a female Ukrainian soldier wearing the Black Sun symbol which is tied to Nazi occultism, and Satanism. NATO wrote in their post “All women and girls must live free and equal,” sending a very mixed message. NATO also ended up taking down their picture of the Black Sun symbol.

The timing of Freeland and NATO’s twitter posts are most strange. It also begs the question, why post something at all if you are just going to delete it? Is this just a matter of not being aware of such things, or is it a matter of certain groupings getting increasingly bolder and unapologetic as to where their true allegiance lies? Has Chrystia Freeland or NATO undergone any real questioning or backlash for such public displays? Not really.

Fact Checking the “Fact-Checkers” on Ukraine

Before we go through the situation of Ukraine today, I wanted to share with you a very relevant story of how the CIA buys News.

Udo Ulfkotte was a well-known German journalist and author of numerous books. He worked for 25 years as a journalist, 17 of which were for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), including his role as editor. In his 2014 book “Journalists for Hire: How the CIA Buys News,” Ulfkotte goes over how the CIA along with German Intelligence (BND) were guilty of bribing journalists to write articles that either spun the truth or were completely fictitious in order to promote a pro-western, pro-NATO bent, and that he was one of those bought journalists.

In an interview, Ulfkotte describes how he finally built up the nerve to publish the book, after years of it collecting dust, in response to the erupting 2014 crisis in Ukraine stating:

“I felt that the right time had come to finish it and publish it, because I am deeply worried about the Ukrainian crisis and the possible devastating consequences for all of Europe and all of us…I am not at all pro-Russia, but it is clear that many journalists blindly follow and publish whatever the NATO press office provides. And this type of information and reports are completely one-sided”. [emphasis added]

In another interview Ulfkotte stated:

“it is clear as daylight that the agents of various Services were in the central offices of the FAZ, the place where I worked for 17 years. The articles appeared under my name several times, but they were not my intellectual product. I was once approached by someone from German Intelligence and the CIA, who told me that I should write about Gaddafi and report how he was trying to secretly build a chemical weapons factory in Libya. I had no information on any of this, but they showed me various documents, I just had to put my name on the article. Do you think this can be called journalism? I don’t think so.”

Ulfkotte has publicly stated:

“I am ashamed of it. The people I worked for knew from the get-go everything I did. And the truth must come out. It’s not just about FAZ, this is the whole system that’s corrupt all the way.” [emphasis added]

Udo Ulfkotte has since passed away. He died January 2017, found dead in his home, it is said by a heart attack. His body was quickly after cremated, thus preventing any possibility of an autopsy from occurring. His book has been made pretty much impossible to find available for purchase at this point.

Today’s situation concerning media reporting on Ukraine does not seem to be any different, if anything, it is much much worse.

To bolster support for the Ukrainian military, Kiev has churned out a steady stream of sophisticated propaganda aimed at stirring public and official support from Western countries.

Ukraine’s propaganda strategy earned it praise from a NATO commander who told the Washington Post, “They are really excellent in stratcom — media, info ops, and also psy-ops.” The Post ultimately conceded that “Western officials say that while they cannot independently verify much of the information that Kyiv puts out about the evolving battlefield situation, including casualty figures for both sides, it nonetheless represents highly effective stratcom.”

Dan Cohen for Mint Press News writes:

“Key to the propaganda effort is an international legion of public relations firms working directly with Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to wage information warfare. According to the industry news site PRWeek, the initiative was launched by an anonymous figure who allegedly founded a Ukraine-based public relations firm…

According to the anonymous figure, more than 150 public relations firms have joined the propaganda blitz.

The international effort is spearheaded by public relations firm PR Network co-founder Nicky Regazzoni and Francis Ingham, a top public relations consultant with close ties to the UK’s government. Ingham previously worked for Britain’s Conservative Party, sits on the UK Government Communication Service Strategy and Evaluation Council, is Chief Executive of the International Communications Consultancy Organisation, and leads the membership body for UK local government communicators, LG Comms.”

Thus, Ingham who has been a member of the UK government and continues to have very high-level connections within the British government, is playing a leading role in shaping how the Ukraine war is being represented.

Dan Cohen provides a thorough explanation of how these “PR firms” have been responsible for reporting and spreading fabricated news and that even when such reports are found conclusively to be untrue, they continue to use them nonetheless. These PR tools include propaganda graphics, which are created in order to encourage radicalisation and promotion of ultra-nationalist identity; using xenophobic and racist language (not just to Russians), outright praise of Ukrainian neo-Nazis as heroes, the idolisation of Nazi affiliated Unit-B leader Stefan Bandera, and the encouragement of violent acts against other individuals (see Cohen’s article for examples).

Why would someone like Ingham be involved in something like this? Well, if you have already read my paper on “How the Ukrainian Nationalist Movement was Bought and Paid for by the CIA Post WWII”, you will see that this is just a continuation of a several decades-long script.

If you have ever wondered who is behind the omnipotent “fact-checkers”, in the case of StopFake who have self-described themselves as such, they are funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) aka the fully-rogue department of the CIA, the Atlantic Council, the International Renaissance Foundation (funded by Open Society Foundation’s billionaire George Soros), the British Embassy in Ukraine, the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the German Marshall Fund, among others.

StopFake was hired by Facebook in March 2020 to “curb the flow of Russian propaganda” but was found to be employing multiple figures closely tied to violent neo-Nazis. This has, however, not deterred Facebook from continuing to work with StopFake.

At the end of the day, it does not seem to matter how many times these arbiters of truth are found to be wrong, for US officials have already admitted that they are literally just lying to the public about what is going on in Ukraine.

So How Serious is Ukraine’s neo-Nazi Romance?

Interestingly, the Atlantic Council itself acknowledges it is quite serious, in an article published in 2018 titled “Ukraine’s Got a Real Problem with Far-Right Violence (And No, RT Didn’t Write This Headline).”

Josh Cohen for the Atlantic Council writes [links are from the original article]:

“It sounds like the stuff of Kremlin propaganda, but it’s not. Last week Hromadske Radio revealed that Ukraine’s Ministry of Youth and Sports is funding the neo-Nazi group C14 to promote “national patriotic education projects” in the country…”

Yes, you read right, C14 along with the Azov Battalion has been training children, with encouragement and funding by the Ukrainian government via Ukraine’s Ministry of Youth and Sports under the title “national patriotic education projects”, including in terror tactics.

Josh Cohen continues [links are from the original article]:

“Since the beginning of 2018, C14 and other far-right groups such as the Azov-affiliated National Militia, Right Sector, Karpatska Sich, and others have attacked Roma groups several times, as well as anti-fascist demonstrations, city council meetings, an event hosted by Amnesty International, art exhibitions, LGBT events, and environmental activists. On March 8, violent groups launched attacks against International Women’s Day marchers in cities across Ukraine. In only a few of these cases did police do anything to prevent the attacks, and in some they even arrested peaceful demonstrators rather than the actual perpetrators.”

After the March 8 2018 attacks against International Women’s Day marchers, Amnesty International wrote “Ukraine is sinking into a chaos of uncontrolled violence posed by radical groups and their total impunity. Practically no one in the country can feel safe under these conditions.”

Josh Cohen writes:

“To be clear, far-right parties like Svoboda perform poorly in Ukraine’s polls and elections, and Ukrainians evince no desire to be ruled by them. But this argument is a bit of “red herring.” It’s not extremists’ electoral prospects that should concern Ukraine’s friends, but rather the state’s unwillingness or inability to confront violent groups and end their impunity.” [emphasis added]

However, we heard it, straight from Yevhen Karas’s mouth, the leader of Ukraine’s neo-Nazi group C14, what determines who holds power in Ukraine has never really been about polls and elections.

Watch Yevhen Karas the leader of Ukraine's neo-Nazi terror gang C14's speech from Kiev earlier this month. Straight from the horses' mouth, he dispels the many narratives pushed by the left, the mainstream media and the State Department. pic.twitter.com/VWJqWPUGUp
— Alex Rubinstein (@RealAlexRubi) February 27, 2022

As the famous “f*ck the EU” tape revealed to the dumbfounded world, the Ukrainian people don’t actually have a say in who runs their government. After the so-called “Revolution of Dignity” where Ukrainians literally died for “democracy,” the US went on to “influence” the roster of the newly formed Ukrainian government, specifically around members of Svoboda and Pravyi Sector (Right Sector) who held five senior roles in the new government, including the post of deputy prime minister.

But neo-Nazis have not just been receiving western support in the political sphere.

Just this past October, as a reaction to her failed diplomatic visit to Russia, Victoria Nuland, according to French journalist Thierry Meyssan, went ahead and “imposed” Dmytro Yarosh onto President Zelensky. On Nov. 2, 2021, President Zelensky appointed Dmytro Yarosh (leader of the neo-Nazi affiliated ultra-nationalist paramilitary group Right Sector 2013-2015) as Adviser to the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

This is the very same Dmytro Yarosh who has been on Interpol’s “wanted list” since 2014.

Neo-Nazis have also received ongoing training by the CIA, British SAS (Special Air Service) as well as other NATO countries such as Canada since at least 2014. This training has continued despite Russia’s entry into Ukraine, which has been confirmed by The Times, Ottawa Citizen, CTV News, and Radio Canada.

The Canadian government has attempted to deny any knowledge of training neo-Nazi militants in Ukraine and have made the claim that they are not responsible for verifying who they are in fact training, but that this is the responsibility of the Ukrainian government. However, such claims of ignorance fell through when the very neo-Nazis they were training went ahead and posted pictures on their social media accounts, showcasing their neo-Nazis badges identifying them as such, plain for everyone to see.

US and Canadian military officers meet uniformed members of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion during a November 2017 multinational training session in Ukraine.

Photos from a deleted page on Azov's website: https://t.co/08C1FLQ6Ee pic.twitter.com/5RAIif6OFf
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) March 20, 2022

On the same day as the untoward NATO tweet on International Women’s Day of a Ukrainian soldier with the Nazi Black Sun occult symbol, photographs appeared on NEXTA’s twitter feed showing the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion receiving training by instructors from “NATO countries” on how to use NLAW grenade launchers.

A shipment of NLAW grenade launchers and instructors from #NATO countries arrived in #Kharkiv. The Azov regiment was the first to learn about new weaponry pic.twitter.com/CCzjN40rW7
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) March 8, 2022

The badge on the sidearm is that of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion

The ultra-nationalist Right Sector have also appeared in the field with UK-made NLAW launchers.

Nothing says stabilization like Right Sector neo-Nazis armed with UK-made NLAW anti-tank missiles https://t.co/KS5FnHqWMR
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) March 7, 2022

UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told the House of Commons on March 9 that “as of today, we have delivered 3,615 NLAWs [to Ukrainian forces] and continue to deliver more. We will shortly be starting the delivery of a small consignment of anti-tank Javelin missiles as well.”

For a full list of all the weapons sent to Ukraine since 2014 by all involved countries, refer here.

For those especially adamant that neo-Nazis are not “officially” a part of the Ukrainian army, you should be informed that the Azov Battalion is part of Ukraine’s National Guard, and thus, yes it is officially part of Ukraine’s military.

Andriy Biletsky, the Azov Battalion’s first commander and later a National Corps parliamentarian previously led the neo-Nazi paramilitary organisation “Patriot of Ukraine,” and once stated in 2010 that it was the Ukrainian nation’s mission to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade… against Semite-led Untermenschen [subhumans].”

In 2019, the Soufan Center, which tracks terrorist and extremist groups around the world, warned:

“The Azov Battalion is emerging as a critical node in the transnational right-wing violent extremist network… [Its] aggressive approach to networking serves one of the Azov Battalion’s overarching objectives, to transform areas under its control in Ukraine into the primary hub for transnational white supremacy.”

The Soufan Center described how the Azov Battalion’s “aggressive networking” reaches around the world to recruit fighters and spread its white supremacist ideology. Foreign fighters who train and fight with the Azov Battalion then return to their own countries to apply what they have learned and recruit others.

In 2014, Newsweek published an article titled “Ukrainian Nationalist Volunteers Committing ‘ISIS-Style’ War Crimes.” Is this an indication of how both the Azov and ISIS have received their funding and training from the very same sources? Hmmm.

NATO has recently gone so far as to make a short film honoring the Baltic Nazi collaborators the “Forest Brothers.” The NATO film lionises the “Forest Brothers,” former Waffen SS fighters who voluntarily collaborated with the Nazis, as anti-communist heroes.

This is the story of the Forest Brothers who fought the Soviet army for their homelands after WWII pic.twitter.com/4JcfuJPmeO
— NATO (@NATO) July 11, 2017

Dovid Katz, a leading historian and anti-Nazi investigator condemned the NATO film for rewriting history:

“By going beyond turning a blind eye to the worship of pro-Hitler forces in Eastern Europe…[NATO] is crossing the line right into offering its moral legitimization of Nazi forces such as the Latvian Waffen SS.” [emphasis added]

David Ignatius, the Washington Post columnist and reliable voice of the US intelligence apparatus, noted that even prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, “the United States and NATO allies [were] ready to provide weapons and training for a long battle of resistance.”

This is the very same David Ignatius who was once President of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) (aka specialists in color revolutions), who arrogantly stated in a 1991 interview that “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA…The biggest difference is that when such activities are done overtly, the flap potential is close to zero. Openness is its own protection”.

I guess the NED has had a change of heart on “openness is its own protection.”

Jeremy Kuzmarov for Covert Action Magazine writes in an article titled “National Endowment for Democracy Deletes Records of Funding Projects in Ukraine” [links from the original article]:

“The National Endowment for Democracy (NED)—a CIA offshoot founded in the early 1980s to advance “democracy promotion” initiatives around the world—has deleted all records of funding projects in Ukraine from their searchable “Awarded Grants Search” database.

The archived webpage captured February 25, 2022 from 14:53 shows that NED granted $22,394,281 in the form of 334 awards to Ukraine between 2014 to the present. The capture at 23:10 the same day shows “No results found” for Ukraine. As of right now, there are still “No results found” for Ukraine…

The erasure of the NED’s records is necessary to validate the Biden administration’s big lie—echoed in the media—that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was ‘unprovoked.’” [emphasis added]

Who will suffer the most in this plan for a long battle of resistance? The Ukrainian people.

If Putin’s top reason for going into Ukraine is to “denazify” the country, and the CIA, NATO and co. are persistently “nazifying” the political and military components of Ukraine, you can see how this is making a situation for peace in Ukraine impossible, and that it is the CIA and NATO that are to blame for this.

You can also understand how Ukraine’s entry into NATO was unacceptable merely by its geographic location (the distance between Ukraine’s border and Moscow is 450 km), however, add in the fact that NATO is involved in the promotion of neo-Nazi militants in Ukraine and that now both Sweden and Finland have also expressed a desire to join NATO (with no referendum since democracy is officially dead in Cold War 2.0) and we have ourselves a real sh*t storm.

However, this is not just a threat to Russia. The reality of the situation is that Ukraine has been in a civil war these past 8 years, though the western media refuses to acknowledge this very important fact.

Ivan Katchanovski, Professor of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa, told MintPress:

“People who take at face value the Western media coverage would have a very distorted perception of the Ukraine conflict and its origin… They omit or deny that there is a civil war in Donbas even though the majority of scholars who [have] published or presented concerning this conflict in Western academic venues classify it as a civil war with Russian military intervention. The Western media also omitted that recent ‘unity marches’ in Kharkiv and Kyiv and a staged training of civilians, including a grandmother, were organized and led by the far right, in particular, the Neo-Nazi Azov [Battalion].”

Robert Parry from Consortium News writes [link is from original article]:

“On Sunday, a Times article by Andrew E. Kramer mentioned the emerging neo-Nazi paramilitary role in the final three paragraphs…In other words, the neo-Nazi militias that surged to the front of anti-Yanukovych protests…have now been organized as shock troops dispatched to kill ethnic Russians in the east [of Ukraine] – and they are operating so openly that they hoist a Swastika-like neo-Nazi flag over one conquered village with a population of about 10,000.

Burying this information at the end of a long article is also typical of how the Times and other U.S. mainstream news outlets have dealt with the neo-Nazi problem in the past. When the reality gets mentioned, it usually requires a reader knowing much about Ukraine’s history and reading between the lines of a U.S. news account.” [emphasis added]

In the above image which outlines the population distribution of ethnic Ukrainians and Russians within Ukraine, you can understand how an ultra-nationalist view that identifies as solely ethnic Ukrainian would be a catalyst for a civil war.

The people of Donbass have understandably asked for independence from Ukraine, yet the Ukrainian government has refused to allow this nor intervene for a peaceful resolution. What does this mean? The war can only end when one side is fully dead.

Not only is it publicly known that the US and NATO have been funding and training neo-Nazis, but they have also been supplying a massive supply of arms (as previously mentioned). It got to such a point where in 2018, Congress had to ban the United States from sending further arms to Ukraine militia linked to neo-Nazis, specifically mentioning the Azov Battalion. For some reason this ban was to only last for three years thus it is apparently fair game now?

But you may say, what about Russia’s crimes against the Ukrainian people, aren’t they far worse than even vicious neo-Nazis? Namely the bombing of the Mariupol theater and the Bucha massacre. Thorough journalistic investigations have already been done on the former, which can be found here, that conclusively shows the bombing of the Mariupol theater was a false-flag.

As for the Bucha massacre, there has been no evidence presented as of yet that conclusively proves who committed this atrocity, there have only been assertions. Recall that the chemical attacks in Syria were also full of assertions, to which investigative journalist Seymour Hersch wrote a report titled “Whose Sarin,” which conclusively proved that the popular assertions being pushed by the Obama government in their attempt to incriminate the Syrian government, were in fact false. Rather, it was pointing to the fact that the actual terrorists were the ones using sarin on the Syrian civilians, who were receiving American and co. funding and arms.

Unfortunately, time is of the essence in investigating crimes such as these, and despite the outcries of the inhumanity of such events, there is always heavy foot-dragging if not outright dismissal over an official and neutral investigation of such crime scenes. Why is this?

Russia has asked the UN Security Council for an investigation and to discuss the Bucha massacre. China has also called for an official investigation into this and has received backlash for withholding blame until all facts are known. However, an official investigation has been repeatedly refused. Why? This should be the official protocol for such matters.

Instead, the response to this was for the UN to suspend Russia from its human rights body. Thus, not only denying an official investigation, but denying Russia a voice in responding to the matter.

The disturbing elephant in the room in all of this, is that the Azov Battalion has already been found guilty of similar atrocities against its own Ukrainian people, which has been thoroughly investigated by Max Blumenthal and Esha Krishnaswamy and which can be found here (warning there is graphic content).

The Azov Battalion has also been found guilty of purposefully putting Ukrainian citizens in jeopardy by positioning their artillery and military in residential areas and buildings, including daycares and hospitals, to which even the Washington Post had to acknowledge in their misleadingly titled article “Russia has killed civilians in Ukraine. Kyiv’s defense tactics add to the danger.”

However, these are not simply “defense tactics,” they are blatant war crimes that are recognised as such by international law. These war crimes are publicly acknowledged to be going on, causing the deaths of a significant number of Ukrainians. Just to be clear here, during times of war, to which the Washington Post also acknowledges, Ukrainian soldiers and weaponry are legitimate targets for the Russian military. It is not Russia that is committing the war crime here, it is the Ukrainian government. They have literally been caught using their own people as human shields.

Does this still sound like a patriotic nationalist movement for the welfare and sovereignty of the Ukrainian people?

According to an interview with Scott Ritter, former US Marine Intelligence Officer, the Russian military have made it clear that they are using “Syrian tactics” in Ukraine.

Scott Ritter explains, the Russian military’s tactic in Syria was:

“…to surround urban areas where these jihadists had been gathered, terrorizing the population, surround them and give them the opportunity to evacuate on buses with their security guaranteed by Russian military police. A soft approach that protected civilians, that protected civilian areas.”

It was this tactic that allowed the Russians along with the Syrian army to defeat ISIS and other terrorist affiliates. Today they only occupy the Idlib province. These terrorists who remain would not have been possible without Turkish support. This initiative to rid Syria of ISIS was something that the United States has clearly never been interested in supporting.

In the image on the left the red and largely the blue represent the region controlled by terrorists, or as Obama liked to call them “moderate rebels” in the year 2017, in the image to the right the purple and grey represent the region controlled by terrorists in the year 2021. The green is the United States and co.’s illegal presence in the country.

Interestingly, when the Russians entered Syria to combat the terrorists at the behest of the Syrian government, this was also called a “Russian invasion” by certain quarters of western media. However, it was not the Russians who bombed Syrian cities to the ground, that was the good ol’ US of A.

In the same interview, Scott Ritter stated that these very terrorists who have been stationed in Idlib are now being brought into Ukraine:

“…[Zelensky] has opened the door for illegal warriors, the mercenaries from Europe…the exploiters of conflict…[and] they brought in the jihadists…they brought in the people..[who] ostensibly want to kill Russians…It’s a poison pill…now we are going to have these jihadists, who are being armed by the way with javelin missiles and stinger missiles. Imagine what happens when a bunch of bloodthirsty jihadists take these weapons into Europe. Would you like to be the German Chancellor driving on a highway knowing that up in the hills could be a jihadist hit-team armed with javelins?…This is literally the worst kind of decision-making ever to put that much weaponry into Ukraine in an uncontrolled fashion. Even before the jihadist came in you were giving it to neo-Nazis who can’t surrender. They can’t surrender because they will be killed, rightfully so. So what do desperate people do when they can’t surrender and they don’t die? They run away with the weaponry they have. They’ll be burying it, making caches, falling back on it, continuing the futile resistance and in their anger to the West they’ll lash out at the West…that is how global terrorism is born.”

How is this in the best interest of anyone’s welfare in Europe, let alone Ukraine? It isn’t.

In November 2015, a UN resolution was brought forward condemning the glorification of Nazism. Of the total 126 member states, 53 countries including member nations of the European Union abstained from voting, four countries voted against the resolution: Canada, Palau, the United States, and Ukraine.

Why do you think that is?

Zelensky: the Enigma

Many have been especially confused as to how Ukraine can have such a serious neo-Nazi problem, when they have a Jewish President.

There is something you should know about the position of “President” of Ukraine since 2014, in a country where neo-Nazis have been made more confident than the mafia ever was, that they literally cannot be touched since they have the direct backing and protection of the United States and NATO.

When President Poroshenko (June 2014 – May 2019) negotiated the Minsk agreements in September 2014, he agreed, with Germany and France, to the special autonomous status of Donetsk and Lugansk, and that under this special condition, they would stay part of Ukraine.

According to an interview^[1] with Scott Ritter, this was unacceptable to the neo-Nazis who threatened Poroshenko’s life, if such a thing were to be implemented.

The Minsk agreements were never put into action. Instead, Ukraine entered a civil war that has gone on for 8 years and continues to this day. The Minsk agreements were officially expired on February 21^st, 2022, the same day that the State Duma of Russia passed a bill officially recognizing Donetsk and Lugansk as independent states. This ultimate rejection by the Ukrainian government was a clear indication that their war against Donbass would be escalated.

The situation with President Zelensky is no different.

In October 2019, President Zelensky (who assumed office in May 2019), had a recorded face-to-face confrontation with the militants from the Azov Battalion, who had launched a campaign to sabotage the peace initiative called “No to Capitulation.”

Kyiv Post translated the conversation as such:

“’Listen, Denys [Yantar], I’m the president of this country. I’m 41 years old. I’m not a loser. I came to you and told you: remove the weapons. Don’t shift the conversation to some protests,’ Zelensky said, videos of the exchange show. As he said this, Zelensky aggressively approached Yantar, who heads the National Corps, a political offshoot of the far-right Azov volunteer battalion, in Mykolaiv city.

‘But we’ve discussed that,’ Yantar said.

‘I wanted to see understanding in your eyes. But, instead, I saw a guy who’s decided that this is some loser standing in front of him,’ Zelensky said.”

The Kyiv Post continues in their article, that this reaction by President Zelensky received a strong backlash from certain quarters of Ukraine:

“Andriy Biletsky, head of National Corps and the Azov Battalion, threatened Zelensky on his YouTube channel that more veterans would head to Zolote if the president tried to evict them from the town. ‘There will be thousands there instead of several dozen,’ he said…

Singer Sofia Fedyna, who is a lawmaker with the European Solidarity party of former President Petro Poroshenko, which has 27 seats in parliament, was particularly aggressive in her response. She issued physical threats against Zelensky.

‘Mr. President thinks he is immortal,’ she said in a video shared on Facebook. ‘A grenade may explode there, by chance. And it would be the nicest if this happened during Moscow’s shelling when someone comes to the front line wearing a white or blue shirt.’

Zelensky has previously visited the front line dressed in civilian clothing, rather than military fatigues.”

Thus, the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion publicly threatened Zelensky if he were to intervene on attempting to negotiate peace and end Ukraine’s civil war.

However, this is not the full story.

President Zelensky is also backed by Ukrainian oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, who sponsored Zelensky’s rise to presidency, not just with his presidential campaign, but also in the tv show “Servant of the People,” that Zelensky literally “play-acted” as President for three seasons, which ran from November 16^th, 2015 to March 28^th, 2019. Zelensky was elected president of Ukraine less than two months after the last episode, on May 20^th, 2019.

Former President Poroshenko even publicly called Zelensky “Kolomoisky’s puppet” during the presidential campaign.^[2]

Kyiv Post reports:

“For years, Zelensky’s company has produced shows for Kolomoisky’s biggest TV channel, 1 + 1. In 2019, Kolomoisky’s media channels gave a big boost to Zelensky’s presidential campaign. After, Zelensky’s victory, Kolomoisky kept up his relationship with the president, nominating over 30 lawmakers to Zelensky’s newly established party, and maintaining influence with many of them in parliament.”

Since Zelensky’s presidency, Kolomoisky has been able to secure control over a significant portion of Ukraine’s energy sector, including Ukrnafta and Centrenergo, as well as Burisma Holdings.

A 2012 study of Burisma Holdings done in Ukraine by the AntiCorruption Action Centre (ANTAC) found that the true owner of Burisma Holdings was none other than Kolomoisky.

Recall the Joe and Hunter Biden scandal over Burisma Holdings, the Ukrainian gas company. The Bidens ties with Kolomoisky and the situation of Ukraine today is not a coincidence.

In the 1990s, Kolomoisky set up PrivatBank, which quickly grew to be one of the biggest financial institutions in Ukraine.

In 2016, Ukraine nationalized PrivatBank from Kolomoisky and his business partner, Gennadiy Boholiubov. A U.S. Justice Department civil forfeiture complaint from December 2020, said the two men “embezzled and defrauded the bank of billions of dollars.” [emphasis added]

There is also the matter of the Pandora Papers, which has confirmed that Ukrainian oligarch Kolomoisky was funneling millions of dollars in concealed assets offshore. Zelensky was also implicated in this. And what this of course also means, is that the City of London is tied into all of this.

Kolomoisky has a notorious history of being a literal “raider” of Ukrainian companies, as confirmed by Harper’s Magazine, and Forbes.

Forbes reports:

“Bogolyubov and Kolomoisky fostered strong reputations as corporate raiders in the mid-2000s, becoming notorious for a series of hostile takeovers. Hostile takeovers Ukrainian style, that is, which often included the active involvement of Privat’s quasi-military teams.”

Kolomoisky, who is Jewish, is also a funder of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion since it was formed in 2014, which has been confirmed by Reuters, Newsweek, and Aljazeera.

He has also bankrolled private militias like the Dnipro and Aidar Battalions and has personally deployed them to protect his financial interests.

In other words, Kolomoisky is funding the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion who have been fighting Eastern Ukrainians for these past 8 years, and thus has been directly fueling the civil war in Ukraine. One of the reasons for this, is that Donbass is a region with many natural resources, especially for the energy sector, to which Kolomoisky would very much like to be in possession of. This could only occur with the extermination or occupation of the people of Donbass.

Interestingly, this past Victory Day (May 8^th), First Deputy Permanent Representative of Russia to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky’s interview was cut short on Sky News when he brought up that Zelen

After years of civil war, the city of Mariupol has now been liberated. Do you think the people in the West will ever hear about this?

Where do We go from Here?

Well, let me put it this way. The United States and NATO know they cannot defeat Russia or China in a direct war, hence all of these proxy wars these past several years under the guise of “War on Terror.” As David Ignatius honestly expressed, their desire is for a long-drawn war. This is because they believe that they can bankrupt Russia and/or set the stage for internal unrest and eventual coup. However, things are clearly not going as planned.

What has been greatly underestimated in this situation is 1) China’s solid alliance with Russia, 2) that Russia is the most resource abundant country in the world to which Europe is dependant on, and 3) the economic brilliance of Sergey Glazyev.

Russia’s rouble has also not tanked as expected. In fact, it has actually grown stronger than ever.

Alasdair Macleod for Goldmoney writes:

“Keynesians in the West have misread this situation. They think that the Russian economy is weak and will be destabilised by sanctions. That is not true. Furthermore, they would argue that a currency strengthened by insisting that oil and natural gas are paid for in roubles will push the Russian economy into a depression. But that is only a statistical effect and does not capture true economic progress or the lack of it, which cannot be measured. The fact is that the shops in Russia are well stocked, and fuel is freely available, which is not necessarily the case in the West.

The advantages for Russia are that as the West’s currencies sink into crisis, the rouble will be protected. Russia will not suffer from the West’s currency crisis, she will still get inflation compensation in commodity prices, and her interest rates will decline while those in the West are soaring. Her balance of trade surplus is already hitting new records.”

It is the West who has miscalculated in all of this, and it is their economy that will utterly tank from this “long-drawn” war these oligarchs have been having wet dreams about for God knows how many years.

We have done this to ourselves. And if we truly want to correct the matter, we should first have the respect to admit the truth in our complicity to much of the world’s woes during this Cold War period. Those of us who have lived in abundance, in comfort, and security, should take the first step to speak out and say no more to the rest of the world living in starved war-torn agony.

We must stop caring for ourselves first at the expense of all else. We must start caring for others first and foremost and acknowledge the crimes that have been committed in our name. Only then can we truly have the humility to see that the solution has been in front of our face the whole time.

If we fail in this, the western world will not be able to sustain itself for much longer economically. And when it falls, what sort of people do you think you will be surrounded by after all these years of supporting fascism under your very nose?

The author can be reached at cynthiachung.substack.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYm8pDrIXBg minute 19:33 ↑
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXgli7TpINw Minute 0:49 ↑

The end of Western domination

Posted on May 27, 2022 by Reid Mukai

By Thierry Meyssan

Source: VoltaireNet.org

The Western sanctions against Russia, decided unilaterally by Washington, are presented as a just punishment for the aggression against Ukraine. But, without mentioning their illegality under international law, everyone can see that they do not reach their target. In practice, the United States is isolating the West in the hope of maintaining its hegemony over its allies.

The United States, which was a late participant in the World Wars and suffered no losses on its territory, emerged victorious from the world conflicts. Inheriting the European empires, it developed a system of domination that made it the “world’s policeman. However, their hegemony was fragile and could not resist the development of large nations. As early as 2012, political scientists began to describe the “Thucydides trap” by analogy with the Greek strategist’s explanation of the wars between Sparta and Athens. According to them, China’s rise to power also made a confrontation with the United States inevitable. Noting that, if China had become the first world economic power, Russia had become the first military power, Washington decided to fight them one after the other.

It is in this context that the war in Ukraine took place. Washington presents it as “Russian aggression”, adopts sanctions and forces its allies to take them too. The first thing that comes to mind is that the United States, knowing that it is militarily inferior but economically superior, decided to choose its battlefield. However, an analysis of the forces involved and the measures taken belies this reading of events.

THE WORLD ECONOMIC SYSTEM

The global economic system was created by the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1944. They aimed to establish a framework for capitalism beyond the crisis of 1929, for which Nazism had not been the solution. The United States imposed its currency as a gold-convertible benchmark. Neither the Soviet Union nor China participated in the conference.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon decided to unofficially end the dollar’s parity with gold. This allowed him to finance the war in Vietnam. In practical terms, there were no longer any fixed exchange rates. The measure was not formalized until after the war, in 1976. It was also at this time that China formed an alliance with the Anglo-Saxon multinationals. The European Community (the forerunner of the European Union) adapted by regulating the now-floating exchange rates in 1972 (the “currency snake”), and then by creating the euro.

From 1981 onwards, the United States began to let its debt slip away. It went from 40% of its GDP to 130% today. They tried to globalize the world economy, i.e. to impose their rules on the solvent countries and to destroy the state structures of the remaining countries (the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski strategy). To pay their debt, they printed dollars, spied on the companies of their allies and stole all the reserves of two big oil states, Iraq and Libya. Nobody dared to say anything, but from 2003 onwards, the US economic system was no longer what it claimed to be. Officially they were still liberal, but everyone could see that they were no longer producing their own food and necessities, and that they were living on rapine.

The US economy, which was one third of the world economy when the USSR dissolved, is now only one tenth.

Many states anticipated the end of the Bretton Woods rules and thought about a new deal. In 2009, Brazil, Russia, India and China, soon joined by South Africa for Africa, created the BRICS. These countries have set up financial institutions which, unlike the IMF and the World Bank, do not make their loans conditional on structural reforms or political commitments to align with Washington. They prefer to invest on a leasing basis, with the host country becoming the owner of the investment when it is profitable.

In 2010, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, soon joined by Armenia, founded the Eurasian Economic Union. These border countries established a free trade zone with Egypt, China, Iran, Serbia, Singapore and Vietnam. They could be joined by South Korea, India, Turkey and Syria.
In 2013, China began its vast “New Silk Roads” project. The following year, when its GDP surpassed that of the United States at purchasing power parity, Beijing created the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), and in 2020, it regulated foreign capital.

In 2021, the European Union devised its Global Gateway to compete with China and impose its political model. But this demand was seen as colonial overreach by many countries and was rejected en masse.

Gradually, the Russian and Chinese blocs have come closer together thanks to the joint project of the Great Eurasian Global Partnership (2016) within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. The aim is to develop the whole space by creating balanced communication channels on the ideological bases defined by Kazakh Sultan Nazerbayev: inclusiveness, sovereign equality, respect for cultural and socio-political identity, openness and readiness to integrate other ensembles.

Washington’s attempt to destroy this emerging entity has no chance of success. It is striking that :
the economic attack began not with the invasion of Ukraine, but two days before.
it is primarily directed against Russian banks, Russian billionaires and the Russian gas industry and not at all against the new Eurasian communication system. Finally, it aims at excluding Russia from international organizations, but does not concern the states that refuse to condemn Russia. Therefore it will push them into the arms of Beijing.

In other words, the US is not isolating Russia, but it is isolating the West (10% of humanity) from the rest of the world (90% of humanity).

THE PROCESS OF SEPARATING THE WEST FROM THE REST OF THE WORLD

0. The very day after Moscow recognized the independence of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (February 21, 2022), the United States launched an economic attack on Russia (February 22). The European Union followed suit the day after (February 23). Vnesheconombank and Promsvyazbank were excluded from the global financial system.

Vnesheconombank (VEB.RF) is a regional development bank. It could have helped the Donbass. Promsvyazbank (PSB) invests mainly in the defense sector. It could have played a role under the Mutual Assistance Treaty.

1. As Russia started a special military operation in Ukraine (February 24), the United States extended the exclusion of the first two banks from the global financial system to all Russian banks (February 25). The European Union followed suit (February 25).

2. In order to prevent as many states as possible from joining Russia, Washington extended the trade bans to Belarus. The European Union began to deny Russian banks access to the SWIFT system as previously instructed by the United States, extended sanctions to Belarus and censored the Russian state media, Russia Today and Sputnik (March 2)

3. Washington began to target wealthy Russian citizens (erroneously called “oligarchs”) with bad relations with the Kremlin (March 3) and to ban imports of Russian energy sources (March 8). The European Union followed suit, but resisted a ban on the import of much-needed Russian gas (March 9).

4. Washington extended financial sanctions in the IMF and World Bank, expanded the list of oligarchs and bannned the export of luxury goods to Russia (March 11). The European Union followed suit (March 15).

5. Washington ensuref that members of the Duma and oligarchs no longer have any rights in the West; that Russia would no longer be able to use its assets in the USA to pay its debts to the USA; and that it would no longer be able to use its gold to pay its debts abroad (24 March). The European Union followed in these prohibitions. It pronounced a ban on the import of Russian coal and oil, but still no ban on gas.

The table below summarizes the communications from the White House and Brussels.

United States	European Union
«United States Imposes First Tranche of Swift and Severe Costs on Russia» (Feb. 22)	EU adopts sanctions package in response to recognition of areas of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts not controlled by the government (Feb. 23)
«United States and Allies and Partners Impose Additional Costs on Russia» (Feb. 24)	First set of EU sanctions (February 25)
«The United States Continues to Impose Costs on Russia and Belarus for Putin’s War of Choice» (March 2)	Second set of EU sanctions (March 2)
«The United States Continues to Target Russian Oligarchs Enabling Putin’s War of Choice» (March 3)«United States Bans Imports of Russian Oil, Liquefied Natural Gas, and Coal» (March 8)	Third set of EU sanctions (March 9)
«United States, European Union, and G7 to Announce Further Economic Costs on Russia» (March 11)	Fourth set of sanctions (March 15)
«United States and Allies and Partners Impose Additional Costs on Russia» (Mar. 24)«United States, G7 and EU Impose Severe and Immediate Costs on Russia» (Apr 6)	Fifth round of EU sanctions

THE REST OF THE WORLD’S RESPONSE

It is an extremely surprising phenomenon to observe: the U.S. has managed to sway a majority of states to its side, but these states are the least populous in the world. It is as if they have no means of putting pressure on countries capable of independence.

Due to the unilateral actions of the Anglo-Saxons and the European Union, the world is being divided into two heterogeneous spaces. The era of economic globalization is over. The economic and financial bridges are being broken one by one.

Reacting swiftly, Russia has convinced its BRICS partners to stop trading in dollars and to eventually create a common virtual currency for their exchanges. Until then, they will proceed in gold. This currency should be based on a basket of BRICS currencies, weighted according to the GDP of each member state, and on a basket of commodities listed on the stock exchange. This system should be much more stable than the current one.

Above all, Russia and China appear to be much more respectful of their partners than the West. They never demand structural reforms, neither economic nor political. The Ukrainian affair shows that Moscow does not seek to take power in Kiev and occupy Ukraine, but to push back NATO and fight the Banderites (the “neo-Nazis” according to Kremlin terminology). Nothing but very legitimate, even if the method is brutal.

In practice, we are witnessing the end of four centuries of domination by Westerners and their empires. It is a confrontation between different ways of thinking.
Westerners now think only in terms of weeks. With this short-sightedness, they may have the impression that the United States is right and the Russians wrong. On the contrary, the rest of the world thinks in decades, even centuries. In this case, there is no doubt that the Russians are right and the West as a whole is wrong.
Moreover, the West rejects international law. They attacked Yugoslavia and Libya without the authorization of the Security Council and lied to attack Afghanistan and Iraq. They only accept the rules they make. On the contrary, the other states aspire to a multipolar world in which each actor would think according to their own culture. They are aware that only international law would make it possible to preserve peace in the world as they dream of it.

Rather than confronting Russia and China, the United States has chosen to withdraw into its empire: to isolate the West in order to maintain its hegemony.

Since 2001, all world leaders have viewed the West, and particularly the United States, as wounded predators. They do not dare to confront them and look for ways to accompany them gently to the cemetery. No one ever imagined that they would isolate themselves to die.

Translation
Roger Lagassé

This article is a follow-up to :
1. “Russia wants to force the US to respect the UN Charter,” January 4, 2022.
2. “Washington pursues RAND plan in Kazakhstan, then Transnistria,” January 11, 2022.
3. “Washington refuses to hear Russia and China,” January 18, 2022.
4. “Washington and London, deafened“, February 1, 2022.
5. “Washington and London try to preserve their domination over Europe“, February 8, 2022.
6. “Two interpretations of the Ukrainian affair”, 16 February 2022.
7. “Washington sounds the alarm, while its allies withdraw”, 22 February 2022.
8. “Russia declares war on the Straussians”, by Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, 5 March 2022.
9. “A gang of drug addicts and neo-nazis”, 5 March 2022.
10 “Israel stunned by Ukrainian neo-Nazis”, 8 March 2022.
11. “Ukraine: the great manipulation“, March 22, 2022.
12. “The New World Order being prepared under the pretext of war in Ukraine“, 29 March 2022.
13. “The war propaganda changes its shape”, 5 April 2022.
14. “The alliance of MI6, the CIA and the banditry“, 12 April 2022.

They’re Just Outright Telling Us That Peace In Ukraine Is Not An Option

Posted on May 25, 2022 by Reid Mukai

By Caitlin Johnstone

Source: CaitlinJohnstone.com

US Senator Joe Manchin said at the World Economic Forum on Monday that he opposes any kind of peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia.

Manchin, who at the moment is one of the most powerful elected officials in Washington, added that only the complete forcible ejection of Russia from all of Ukraine is acceptable, that the war should ideally be used to remove Putin from power, and that he and the strategists he talks to see this war as an “opportunity”.

“I am totally committed, as one person, to seeing Ukraine to the end with a win, not basically with some kind of a treaty; I don’t think that is where we are and where we should be,” Manchin said.

“I mean basically moving Putin back to Russia and hopefully getting rid of Putin,” Manchin added when asked what he meant by a win for Ukraine.

Joe Manchin, speaking today at the World Economic Forum, rejects the idea that the Ukraine war should ever be resolved with "some type of a treaty." Instead demands fighting "to the end," until total victory — which includes "getting rid of Putin" pic.twitter.com/wPj8qfsF1P
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) May 24, 2022

Manchin clarified that he did not mean pushing Putin back to “pre-February”, ostensibly meaning with Russia still controlling the largely Moscow–loyal Crimea and supporting separatist territories in the Donbass, but with Kyiv fully reclaiming all parts of the nation.

“Oh no, I think Ukraine is determined to take their country back,” Manchin said when asked to clarify, further clarifying that he wants his call for regime change in Russia to be carried out by “the Russian people.”

“I believe strongly that I have never seen, and the people I talk strategically have never seen, an opportunity more than this, to do what needs to be done,” Manchin later added. “And Ukraine has the determination to do it. We should have the commitment to support it.”

Joe Manchin, one of the most powerful elected officials in Washington, tells the WEF that he opposes any kind of peace agreement in Ukraine and only wants total victory with the ultimate goal of regime change in Russia. In the next clip, he calls this war an "opportunity". 1/2 pic.twitter.com/gsgCUzA0TF
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 24, 2022

Manchin’s comments fit in perfectly with what we know about the US-centralized empire’s real agendas in Ukraine.

Earlier this month Ukrainian media reported that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson told the nation’s president Volodymyr Zelensky on behalf of NATO powers that “even if Ukraine is ready to sign some agreements on guarantees with Putin, they are not.”

Last month US Secretary of “Defense” Lloyd Austin acknowledged that the goal in this war is not peace in Ukraine or the mere military defeat of Russia but to actually weaken Russia as a nation, saying “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.”

Last week The New York Times reported that the Biden administration is developing plans to “further choke Russia’s oil revenues with the long-term goal of destroying the country’s central role in the global energy economy.”

Just the other day Ukraine’s military intelligence chief announced that the mission has already creeped forward from the goal of defeating the Russian invaders to reclaiming the Crimean territory which was annexed by the Russian Federation in 2014.

Two months ago Biden himself acknowledged what the real game is here with an open call for regime change, saying of Putin, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.”

Statements from the Biden administration in fact indicate that they expect this war to drag on for a long time, making it abundantly clear that a swift end to minimize the death and destruction is not just uninteresting but undesirable for the US empire.

This is not a proxy war with peace as an option anywhere within sight. It’s not about saving Ukrainian lives. It’s not even about beating Russia in Ukraine. It’s about achieving regime change in Moscow, no matter how many lives need to be destroyed in the process.

Peace is not on the menu.

Yes, The Ukraine War Could Have Been Prevented

An agreement in which Ukraine promised to remain a neutral country and the fulfilment of the Minsk accords could have stopped Putin’s invasion, @I_Katchanovski explains.https://t.co/iZjTYxNaA8
— The Maple (@readthemaple) May 19, 2022

This war could easily have been prevented with a little diplomacy and reasonable compromise. As the University of Ottawa’s Ivan Katchanovski recently explained to The Maple, “an agreement in which Ukraine promised to remain a neutral country and the fulfilment of the Minsk accords could have stopped Putin’s invasion.”

We know now that the US intelligence cartel had good visibility into what the Kremlin had planned for Ukraine, so they would have known exactly what could have been done to prevent the invasion. They knowingly chose to do none of those things, because the goal was to provoke this war the entire time and then weaponize it against Moscow.

That’s why the Biden administration has been hindering diplomatic efforts to negotiate an end to this war, why it has refused to provide Ukraine with any kind of diplomatic negotiating power regarding the possible rollback of sanctions and other US measures to help secure peace, and why Washington’s top diplomats have consistently been conspicuously absent from any kind of dialogue with their counterparts in Moscow.

Empire spinmeisters and their propagandized victims like to claim that Ukrainian forces are fighting for “peace” in Ukraine. The other day Kyiv Independent’s Illia Ponomarenko, who has called the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion his “brothers in arms,” tweeted this:

Good god, I want peace in Ukraine by Christmas time.
Fireworks and joy in the snowy streets of Kyiv. Patriotic music, strangers hugging each other at the Maidan, “merry Christmas, war is over.”
That would be just awesome, don’t you guys think so?
— Illia Ponomarenko 🇺🇦 (@IAPonomarenko) May 21, 2022

But anyone who understands this war knows this is ridiculous. Peace is not the goal in Ukraine. Most of the Ukrainians doing the fighting surely believe they are fighting for peace in their homeland, and peace is surely their intention, but that’s not something the empire will allow if the empire gets any say in the matter.

Even if Ukraine does somehow avoid being used as cannon fodder to draw Moscow into a long and costly slog as US officials have admitted was done in both Afghanistan and in Syria, and even if they do somehow manage to deliver a crushing and conclusive defeat to Moscow in the near term (which is far less probable than the western media would have you believe), that wouldn’t be the end of the war. The war would just change shape as the empire and its proxies go on the offensive against Moscow.

This war does not end with Russia being driven from Ukraine, it ends with regime change and the balkanization of the Russian Federation. Really it doesn’t end until the rise of China has been stopped and US unipolar hegemony secured. Or when the empire collapses. Or when we all die in a nuclear holocaust.

Pulitzer Prize winning author Chris Hedges speaks truth the to real power in this country. No Way Out but War, by @ChrisLynnHedges https://t.co/40QLqi7fKl
— eddie pepitone (@eddiepepitone) May 22, 2022

All forward motion in this war has nothing but violence as far as the eye can see on its trajectory into the future. No matter how much wealth and war machinery you pour into this conflict, that trajectory of death and destruction will just keep stretching out to the horizon. As Chris Hedges recently explained, war is the only path the empire has left open to itself.

I’ve seen some cute kids in my time, but nobody’s as adorable as people who think the US pours weapons into foreign nations in order to achieve peace.

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They’re Just Outright Telling Us That Peace In Ukraine Is Not An Option