Investigative journalist, Max Blumenthal, is the son of Sydney Blumenthal,
Investigative journalist, Max Blumenthal
who is a well-known journalist, Democratic political consultant, as well as an historian who has written a 5-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln.
Max is an important voice in alternative news media. He is the author of 5 important books, 3 of which I have read — these being Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza, and The Management of Savagery: How America’s National Security State Fueled the al Qaeda, Isis, and Donald Trump.
Max is also the founder and chief editor of The Grayzone, an alternative, online news site that I follow faithfully. Please note that when I say “alternative news” I mean “much, much more likely to be telling you the actual facts of the situation than any reporter will be telling you on the MSM.”
This story is significant for westerners especially since the US/western media are busy making a very big deal of the fact that Ukrainian president Zelensky is Jewish. Their argument is that Jew could never — no never — be allied with neo-Nazis in his country nor allow them into his government.
Of course, grown ups should know better than to believe such things.
Below is one of Jimmy Dore’s recent conversations with Max. Jimmy does a good job of introducing the issues for discussion during the opening 9 minutes. At the 9:30 mark, Max joins in with further analysis of the role neo-Nazis and fascistic, Ukrainian ethnic nationalism have played in the war with Russia — a conflict that actually began in 2014.
I once read that Americans are the most heavily propagandized people in the world. That may not be true, but I suspect that we rank very high, along side the various authoritarian regimes we pretend to hate.
Propaganda not only involves the spread of false information, it also withholds any information that conflicts with or complicates the establishment, party line.
US news media have been using these methods of disinformation for many years. War always offers a banquet of salacious, opportunities for effective propaganda.
Investigative journalist, Max Blumenthal
This is why you probably have never heard of either Max Blumenthal or Aaron Mate. They are rarely, if ever, invited to appear on mainstream, network, or cable news channels. Their problem is that they are not propagandists for the establishment.
Yet, for my money, Max and Aaron are two of the most important
Investigative journalist, Aaron Mate
independent, investigative journalists working today.
This the first of three posts where I will feature their reporting on the current war in Ukraine. No, neither of them are reporting from the front lines. But I know that Max has been to Ukraine for past investigations, and they both have personal contacts with people in Ukraine today.
They are both also well informed about the modern history of the region, Ukrainian-Russian relations, and the lead up to the current conflict.
Jimmy Dore has been offering them a platform for extended commentary. It’s the best coverage that I have found explaining the US role in sparking this war, and the provocations effected by the fascist, neo-Nazi wing of the Ukrainian military and national government, including the crucial effects of the Ukrainian civil war in the eastern part of the country.
Jimmy will not be to everyone’s taste. But I encourage you to stay put and listen to everything Max and Aaron have to say.
In this first video, Aaron Mate explains “What the Media is Hiding About Ukraine/Russia.”
CBN has a journalist reporting from Ukraine. Here is the conclusion of his most recent report. CBN labels the clip, “Who is going to stand up for freedom and democracy?”:
Is this man a propagandist stooge? Is he ignorant about recent European history? Or is he so heavily invested in American Christian nationalism that he cannot think outside of his tiny American box?
Returning to the ridiculous propaganda created by George W. Bush is not only ignorant but dangerous. Remember when president Bush justified his absurd “war on terror” by declaring that the “terrorists” (whoever they might be) “hated us because of our freedom.”?
That was not true then, and it is not true today.
Explaining Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by saying that “Russia hates Ukrainian democracy and freedom” is merely a lazy conservative’s way of saying, “I don’t know what in the world is happening here.”
Remember, this is the news network that has never seen an American invasion of another sovereign country, or an American led coup overturning a foreign government, that it didn’t approve of.
CBN cheered for America’s criminal destruction of Iraq.
They have applauded the American demolition of Syria.
The list could go on and on…
And now they condemn Russia for invading Ukraine?
This report is a dangerous example of Christian nationalist propaganda. It is dangerous because the obvious tragedy of war is manipulated to serve the interests of imperial America in eastern Europe.
The reporter’s tearful, closing rhetorical question is an obvious appeal to American sympathies. Humanitarian sympathies that will then be corrupted by US politicians and military recruiters who will justify another round of warfare by happily sacrificing the next generation of “freedom fighters” on the altar of imperialistic, American self-righteousness.
Millions of uninformed, patriotic, nationalistic, evangelical American Christians will watch this CBN report and naïvely swallow it all hook, line, and sinker. America wears the shining white hat of freedom. Russia wears the malicious black hat of tyranny.
Such manipulation works best among the uninformed. And, sadly, American evangelicals are among the most uninformed.
The average listener will not know anything about the recent history of American-Russian-Ukrainian relations.
They won’t know about Russia’s protests against NATO expansion, or that the US broke it’s promise to Russia that NATO would not be expanded.
They won’t know about the various proposals for a unified European military arrangement that would have included Russia, all of which were negated by the US.
They won’t know that Russia asked to join NATO several times over the years. Mikhail Gorbachev proposed the idea in 1990. Vladimir Putin asked president Clinton for Russia’s admission to NATO.
They won’t know that the US was deeply involved in the 2014 coup that overthrew the democratically elected Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych who was replaced by a hand-picked, America-friendly politician.
So, please, it is the height of hypocrisy for anyone to pretend that this current crisis is about the defense of democracy.
The US has always needed its Russian boogeyman. NATO preferred to maintain its “defense profile” as an anti-Russian organization and so rejected or ignored Russia’s requests for membership. Consequently, Russia was deliberately isolated as it watched NATO forces march further and further east, until they now sit cheek-to-jowl on the Russian border.
How many times can you poke a bear with a sharp stick before it turns on you?
We are now witnessing the answer to that question in Ukraine. Yes, Putin’s aggression must be condemned. He and he alone started this war. He is the premier warmonger of the moment.
But the United States as well as every NATO member state must share responsibility for the looming Ukrainian death toll. We too are guilty. We have used and abused Ukraine as a pawn in our psychotic phobia to hate Russia.
Watching a “Christian” journalist wallow in this phobia as he propagates the damnable heresy of Christian nationalism is both pathetic and heartbreaking.
Didn’t he, or anyone else at CBN, ever have a pastor or a professor or a good friend explain to them that as followers of Jesus we are always citizens of God’s kingdom, first, last, and always?
Allegiance to Jesus leaves no room for anyone’s nationalism. Neither does it allow for narrow mindedness, ignorance, or the deliberate exploitation of misinformation. War is too serious a matter.
First, a few words from Stephen Cohen, now deceased, on the absurdity and of our current situation in Ukraine, which could have been avoided. Cohen was a professor of Russian history and p0litics at Princeton and NYU.
Caitlin Johnstone has another good article detailing what the US ought to be doing right now. I’ll give you a hint: it’s nothing at all like what is actually happening.
The article is entitled “12 Thoughts on Ukraine.”
Here is an excerpt:
The U.S. power alliance has a choice between escalating aggressions against Russia to world-threatening levels or doing what anti-imperialists have been begging them to do for years and pursue detente.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the goal of which he claims is not to occupy the country but to “demilitarize” and “de-Nazify” it. We’ve no reason to put blind faith in any of those claims. Only time will tell.
As of this writing dozens have reportedly been killed. All war is horrific. We can only hope that this one winds up being the least horrific a war can be.
Some thoughts:
This whole thing could very easily have been avoided with a little bit of diplomacy. The only reason that didn’t happen was it would have meant the U.S. empire taking a teensy, weensy step back from its agenda of total planetary domination. I’ve seen people call it “sad” or “unfortunate” that Western powers didn’t make basic low-cost, high-yield concessions like guaranteeing no NATO membership for Ukraine and having Kiev honor the Minsk agreements, but it’s not sad, and it’s not unfortunate. It’s enraging. That they did this deserves nothing but pure, unadulterated, white hot rage.
Narrative managers have been working furiously to quash all discussion of No. 1, however. Like our good friend Michael McFaul here:
This is one of the most influential Russia “experts” in the Western world decrying propaganda while demanding media outlets enact propaganda. Saying what your government wants said instead of objective reporting the truth is the thing that propaganda is.
Please don’t report facts on your media platforms. Don’t let anyone talk about the known actions by NATO powers and Kiev, which experts have long warned would lead to this situation. You’re not allowed to talk about the known U.S./NATO/Ukraine actions which demonstrably led us to where we’re at. You’re only allowed to say Putin attacked Ukraine completely unprovoked, in a vacuum, solely because he is evil and hates freedom. Your loyalty is to the U.S. empire, not to truth. . .
The primary risk of nuclear war is not that anyone will choose to start one, it’s that one could be triggered by miscommunication, malfunction or misunderstanding amid the chaos and confusion of escalating Cold War tensions. This nearly happened, repeatedly, in the last Cold War. Cold War brinkmanship has far too many small, unpredictable moving parts for anyone to feel confident that they can ramp up aggressions without triggering a nuclear exchange. Nobody who feels safe with these games of nuclear chicken understands what they really are. We survived the last Cold War by sheer, dumb luck. We were never once in control. We just got lucky. There’s no reason to trust that we’ll get lucky again. We need to abandon this madness and pursue detente immediately. . .
8. It would now seem the U.S. power alliance has a choice between either (A) escalating aggressions against Russia to world-threatening levels or (B) doing what anti-imperialists have been begging them to do for years and pursuing detente. This is exactly where anti-imperialists have been warning we could wind up if the U.S. didn’t work toward detente with Russia. . .
As a follower of Jesus, I am a staunch anti-imperialist, as I believe every Christian should be.
Whether or not we all agree on that issue, I am convinced that every Christian must be committed to:
Insisting that our government avoid military escalation and conflict by pursuing rigorous diplomacy. It is wiser to be called “weak” by a warmonger than to enter a potentially nuclear conflict through foolish bluster.
Recognizing that we are not the only group of people with legitimate, national security interests. We must recognize that Russia has its own security concerns that have been seriously magnified by NATO, western forces arrayed along its western border. Who is the aggressor here? Seeing issues from the other’s perspective is an essential, Christian virtue.
Closing our eyes and ears to the patriotic, nationalistic, pro-America chanting that accompanies every new military excursion. We are citizens of God’s kingdom first and foremost. Christ’s kingdom is always a peaceable kingdom that never calls anyone to war and never justifies anyone else’s bloody conflict. Do not be deceived by the heresy, idolatry, and blood-lust now bombarding America’s airwaves.
President Biden claims that Russian ground troops have moved into eastern Ukraine, others say that Russian forces remain stationed along the border with orders to remain on alert.
Which story is true? I don’t know, but one thing is certain. The events unfolding along the Russia-Ukraine border are very, very dangerous for all of Europe and the United States.
As a Christian, I believe avoiding war and expanding peace is always the best option. So, once again, as the US media continues the spew the establishment, anti-Russia, anti-Putin party-line, I encourage us all to expand our information horizons.
Below are three analyses of the current crisis going well beyond, and contrary to, the pro-American narrative. Since we may well be looking at another war in Europe, it is imperative for every citizen to be as well-informed as possible.
I hope you’ll take the time to listen to these reports:
The first is by a journalist with the Socialist Workers Party. Ignore the political ad at the end of his report if you choose, but his description of the situation on the ground is very good.
Below is an interview with Ben Aris who was once the Moscow bureau chief for the British newspaper, the Daily Telegraph. He offers an excellent historical overview and current perspective:
Finally, even though this next interview is 43 minutes long, it is well worth every minute of your time. Aaron Mate interviews Richard Sakwa, professor of Russian and European politics at the University of Kent.
If only US news media would offer the analysis of people like Aris and Sakwa. But then, mainstream news outlets don’t try to inform us. Their primary purpose is to manipulate us.
Chris Hedges was a war correspondent for the New York Times for 20 years. As an on the ground reporter who has seen war’s destructive power up close and personal, he lost numerous friends and can tell his own near-death experiences.
Perhaps his most important book, in my opinion, is his dissection of war’s seductive, erotic power and the dehumanizing effects it has for all concerned. The book is entitled War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.
I encourage you to read it if you haven’t already.
As the US government continues to beat its war drums, feeding our major news outlets with a steady stream of evidence-free accusations against Russia, all intended to stir American blood-lust, we should stop and ask ourselves why opposing voices are never given time publicly to explain their opposition to war with Russia.
Doesn’t that seem suspicious to you? Why is there no public debate?
Below is an excerpt from one of Hedges speeches during the lead up the war in Iraq. He summarizes his arguments from his book, War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. I encourage you to sit down and listen.
The Biden administration is working hard to convince us that America’s newest meaning and purpose is a violent conflict with another major superpower.
Don’t buy it. It’s a lie. It’s a lie forged in the pit of hell and now propagated by devilish warmongers who calculate only dollar signs when they should see precious human lives.
The massacre of Palestinian villagers at Tantura in 1948 was one of many similar horrific, criminal acts committed by the Israeli military during the founding of modern Israel.
Professor Ilan Pappe
The Israeli historian Ilan Pappe has documented an additional thirty-one confirmed massacres of unarmed Palestinian civilians, including women and children, with the possibility of another six needing further investigation.
This video from the Middle East Eye focuses on the Tantura massacre. Pappe describes the Israeli killing spree in some detail in his book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, pages 133-137. As many as 230 villagers were executed at Tantura, lined up and shot in the back of the head.
Professor Gary Burge was a New Testament professor at Wheaton College
Professor Gary Burge
for many years. He is also a good friend of mine and is now a dean at Calvin Theological Seminary in Grand Rapids, MI.
Gary has written three excellent books about the errors of Christian Zionism and the real-world fallout that it helps to create.
Thus, I was quite happy when Gary agreed to write the forward to my new book, Like Birds in a Cage: Christian Zionism’s Collusion in Israel’s Oppression of the Palestinian People (Wipf and Stock, 2021).
I recently discovered that a website called ChristianZionism.org, which Gary helped to organize, is promoting my book by reprinting Gary’s very kind forward.
If you haven’t yet purchased your own copy of the book, I encourage you to read Gary’s forward here.
John Pilger is an independent, British war-journalist and documentary
Independent journalist and documentary film maker, John Pilger
film-maker who does journalism the old-fashioned way: he goes to the scene and talks to the people involved.
His article, posted today at Consortium News, is entitled “War in Europe & the Rise of Raw Propaganda.” He ably discusses both the tsunami of warmongering propaganda about Ukraine that has swept across American media, as well as the needlessly reckless behavior — principally from the American side — unfolding around Ukraine.
Did you know that Ukraine has been in the midst of a civil war since 2014, a war where the US is backing the side that includes neo-Nazi, fascist militias?
Did you know that the US was a major player in overthrowing the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014, an action that helped to stir the civil war ravaging eastern Ukraine today?
Below is an excerpt of Pilger’s article:
Russia’s security proposals ought to be welcomed in the West. . . But who understands their significance when all the people are told is that Putin is a pariah?
Marshall McLuhan’s prophecy that “the successor to politics will be propaganda” has happened. Raw propaganda is now the rule in Western democracies, especially the U.S. and Britain. . .
On matters of war and peace, ministerial deceit is reported as news. Inconvenient facts are censored, demons are nurtured. The model is corporate spin, the currency of the age. In 1964, McLuhan famously declared, “The medium is the message.” The lie is the message now.
But is this new? It is more than a century since Edward Bernays, the father of spin, invented “public relations” as a cover for war propaganda. What is new is the virtual elimination of dissent in the mainstream. . .
The No-Evidence Rule
The Russians are coming. Russia is worse than bad. Putin is evil, “a Nazi like Hitler,” salivated the Labour MP Chris Bryant. Ukraine is about to be invaded by Russia – tonight, this week, next week. The sources include an ex CIA propagandist who now speaks for the U.S. State Department and offers no evidence of his claims about Russian actions because “it comes from the U.S. Government.”
Jack F. Matlock served as US ambassador to the USSR from 1987 to 1991, which means that he witnessed the fall of the Iron Curtain and watched the
Jack F. Matlock, former US ambassador to the Soviet Union
emergence of Mikhail Gorbachev, glasnost, and perestroika from a ringside seat inside Russia.
This means that he is better informed than most when it comes to the post-Soviet history of Eastern Europe, the Baltic States, Ukraine, and Russia.
Mr. Matlock is now a member of the board of directors of the American Committee for US-Russia Accord (ACURA).
In 1997, Ambassador Matlock was asked to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. When asked about whether or not more member states should be added to NATO, he said that it was unwise; that, in fact, “it may well go down in history as the most profound strategic blunder made since the end of the Cold War.”
Several days ago Matlock penned a wise and compelling op-ed about the current crisis involving Ukraine, Russia, and the US.
He is thoroughly familiar with all the countries involved. His analysis is rooted in history not hysteria. If only he were inside Biden’s White House.
Below is a selection of excerpts from one of the best analyses of this situation you will find anywhere:
Today we face an avoidable crisis [in Ukraine] that was predictable, actually predicted, willfully precipitated, but easily resolved by the application of common sense. . . Maybe I am wrong—tragically wrong—but I cannot dismiss the suspicion that we are witnessing an elaborate charade, grossly magnified by prominent elements of the American media, to serve a domestic political end. Facing rising inflation, the ravages of Omicron, blame (for the most part unfair) for the withdrawal from Afghanistan, plus the failure to get the full support of his own party for the Build Back Better legislation, the Biden administration is staggering under sagging approval ratings just as it gears up for this year’s congressional elections. Since clear “victories” on the domestic woes seem increasingly unlikely, why not fabricate one by posing as if he prevented the invasion of Ukraine by “standing up to Vladimir Putin”? . . .
. . . So far as Ukraine is concerned, U.S. intrusion into its domestic politics was deep—to the point of seeming to select a prime minister. It also, in effect, supported an illegal coup d’etat that changed the Ukrainian government in 2014, a procedure not normally considered consistent with the rule of law or democratic governance. The violence that still simmers in Ukraine started in the “pro-Western” west, not in the Donbas where it was a reaction to what was viewed as the threat of violence against Ukrainians who are ethnic Russian. . .
Things got worse during the four years of Donald Trump’s tenure. Accused, without evidence, of being a Russian dupe, Trump made sure he embraced every anti-Russian measure that came along, while at the same time flattered Putin as a great leader. Reciprocal expulsions of diplomats, started by the United States in the final days of Obama’s tenure continued in a grim vicious circle that has resulted in a diplomatic presence so emaciated that for months the United States did not have enough staff in Moscow to issue visas for Russians to visit the United States. . .
. . . What President Putin is demanding, an end to NATO expansion and creation of a security structure in Europe that insures Russia’s security along with that of others is eminently reasonable. He is not demanding the exit of any NATO member and he is threatening none. By any pragmatic, common sense standard it is in the interest of the United States to promote peace, not conflict. To try to detach Ukraine from Russian influence—the avowed aim of those who agitated for the “color revolutions”—was a fool’s errand, and a dangerous one. Have we so soon forgotten the lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis?
book, Like Birds in a Cage: Christian Zionism’s Collusion in Israel’s Oppression of the Palestinian People (Wipf and Stock, 2021).
