Join us as we examine the information warfare being waged to enforce a single narrative about the war in Ukraine. Watch the replay.
It may be worse than McCarthyism, which was defeated by its own excesses. Today’s information war against individuals and media who do not adhere to the Western-government-enforced narrative on Ukraine is part of a long history in the U.S. of officially crushing dissent. With the advances of technology for both surveillance and censorship, we might be in the most chilling atmosphere yet for thought control. Will it too be brought down by its own excesses?
As Consortium News has argued, the U.S. and NATO needed and helped facilitate the invasion of Ukraine to launch its economic war against Russia but also its information war against domestic dissent. Our guests have been targets of censorship and smears in this coordinated assault on freedom of expression: George Galloway, Chris Hedges, Scott Ritter and Jill Stein, co-hosted by Elizabeth Vos and Joe Lauria and produced by Cathy Vogan.
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SHOW INTRODUCTION
The First Amendment has not prevented the U.S. from suppressing speech throughout its history.
Just eight years after the adoption of the Bill of Rights, press freedom had become a threat to John Adams, the second president, whose Federalist Party pushed through Congress the Alien and Sedition Laws. They criminalized criticism of the federal government:
“To write, print, utter or publish, or cause it to be done, or assist in it, any false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the government of the United States, or either House of Congress, or the President, with intent to defame, or bring either into contempt or disrepute…” was banned.
Congress did not renew the Act in 1801.
Freedom of the press and speech next came significantly under attack in the lead up to the 1860-65 U.S. Civil War. Newspaper editors who campaigned for the abolition of slavery were attacked by mobs, sometimes directed by elected officials. In 1837 an editor was killed by a mob, one of whose organizers was the Illinois attorney general.
During the war numerous editors and journalists were arrested in the North. “Throughout the war, newspaper reporters and editors were arrested without due process for opposing the draft, discouraging enlistments in the Union army, or even criticizing the income tax,” according to the First Amendment Encyclopedia.
While formal censorship was excluded from the 1917 Espionage Act by just one vote in the U.S. Senate, the 1918 Sedition Act was a two-paragraph amendment that was aimed at Americans who insulted the U.S. government, military or flag and who tried to criticize the draft, military industry or sale of war bonds.
This law distilled the essence of enforced loyalty of the population to the symbols and military power of the state. It demolished the idea that America is exceptional as it showed the U.S. enforcing the same state-worship as most nations in history.
The act, with similar federal laws, was used to convict at least 877 people in 1919 and 1920, most infamously the socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for publicly opposing the military draft in a June 1918 speech.
Publications such as The Masses were also prosecuted. The Sedition Act was repealed by Congress in March 1921.
During the First World War the peculiar American practice of renaming food to erase the enemy began. Sauerkraut became liberty cabbage. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq French fries became freedom fries, because France opposed the war. Today Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky have been removed from concert programs and living Russian artists have been fired.
The Red Scare under Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s was one of the worst periods of smearing and punishing Americans who were thought to be disloyal. Its end came with the excess of McCarthy trying to find communists in the U.S. army.
In the 1971 Pentagon Papers case the Supreme Court made clear what the First
Amendment stands for. Justice Hugo Black wrote:
“In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government.”
The 2016 election and the Russiagate fiasco gave the Democrats in Congress an excuse to use social media companies as proxies to shut down speech it did not agree with. It also led to smearing of those who questioned the Russiagate tale as being Russian agents.
One of the gravest acts of U.S. repression of press freedom and free speech was the arrest and indictment under the Espionage Act of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who for three years as been incarcerated in the maximum security Belmarsh Prison in London, awaiting extradition to the United States.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has given the U.S. the excuse it needed to launch an economic war against Russia, which so far is backfiring, to try to bog Russia down in a quagmire with continual arms shipments to Ukraine, and also to launch an information war, not only against Russia, but against U.S. and U.K. domestic dissent. Only one narrative is being enforced, which prohibits mention of Ukraine’s recent history, such as the 2014 U.S. backed coup, the 8-year war in Donbass as the role of neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
Well I voted for Jill in 2016, sure wish she had won, smart and compassionate.
I have only recently discovered people like George and Scott after searching for truthful reporting of the Trucker Convoy in my country of Canada. During my metamorphosis the true nature of the mainstream media shocked me into apoplectic anger. Our state funded CBC, which I have relied on for more than five decades, is now one of the most sickening examples lockstep propaganda imaginable. Goebbels would blush. Our smug and preening Prime Minister Trudeau is unrivalled in the world for his unconstitutional smothering of dissent and transparent imposition of the WEF agenda of his handlers. His Deputy, Christina Freeland, has literally wrapped herself in the flag of extremist Ukrainians, true to the legacy of her Ukrainian/ Nazi grandfather who escaped prosecution in Canada. To the previous commenter who thought this forum was overlong and that Mr Ritter was not “at his best” I say instead help and encourage them. I cannot imagine their struggle to tell the truth in this age and on behalf of humanity as they are hounded from platform to platform. I thank you all for giving me hope and on behalf of my sons and my little grandson. Sincerely, Kerry Korberg
I put a very neutrally worded, factual comment to a Guardian story about censorship that Hedges had had his archive removed from YouTube. The Guardian removed it as violating their rules.
As someone who has heard or read all of your guests repeatedly I was surprised to find myself exhausted and depressed at the end of this program. It could be that each presentation was too long or that am suffering from alternative media burnout. I do not disagree with most of what is being said however – the fact that American and other media is censoring not only alternative points of view is in keeping with what I believe and experience – as well as the out and out lying going on. I do want thank the Consortium for being there for people who want the opportunity to find out what is going on and who have given up on American MSM. Keep up the good work for all of our sakes and I will continue to re-post and share what I can. In addition, I usually like Scott Ritter’s boots on the ground approach and depth of knowledge but I do not think he was at his best last night. Thanks again.
“The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them” (VI Lenin). Today, the internet is that rope (compliments of the Pentagon).
Liberals and conservatives, and all those who won’t dare contemplate anything unless it’s ‘peaceful’, ‘legal’ would do well to heed the true words of cold-war liberal, JFK: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
Except that history and all the data to hand unfailingly tells us that there’s no such thing as a ‘peaceful revolution’ — because all ruling classes in history, not least today’s capitalist class, hold onto power through their innumerable organs of ‘soft power’, but in the last instance with force and violence by their state machine dedicated to that end. And ‘soft power’ tends not to work very well against hunger and famine.
It’s thus illusory to assume the US military won’t be used to kill its own citizens, because it already does (eg, droning US citizens abroad). And if the National Guard and its fascist auxiliary can’t contain an uprising of hungry desperate people, the military proper will definitely be called in. And right up to when they’re ordered to shoot not an alien ‘enemy’ that their officers have lied to them about but ordinary young people, mothers and fathers and grandmothers and grandfathers on the streets, all enlisted men or women will face a stark choice: ‘defend the constitution’ or turn the guns the other way.
In the Russian Revolution, a major turning point came when the police and the soldiers refused to fire on their fellow citizens and joined the revolutionary cadres.
To your last lines……at that point there is no longer a reason to “Defend the constitution” , because there is NO constitution in that action. So, turn the guns the other way.
IF nato could back off this war could stop now. nato cannot back off, nato exists to make war. the destruction Ukraine, deaths and mess made of the world economy is the intention of nato. we MUST be persuaded to continue this insanity.
I cannot see the rational of all this mess except to enable a hidden cadre to gather up enormous wealth….. to spend away our climate and ultimately life on earth as we know it….. maybe they plan to fly away to a new planet to spoil?
What a relief that Chris Hedges has not been silenced
Thank you for this great & necessary discussion. Some thoughts –
Experiments have shown that about 3/4 of people will submerge their own observations to join in “groupthink”. About 1/4 will not. So we would expect about 1/4 of the mainstream reporters and editors to report the full facts about the Ukraine situation. Instead, all the mainstream reports withhold central facts, lying by omission. And they often replace those fact with verifiably false claims.
This unnatural blanket uniformity implies a coordinating central control. In our corporate system, an effective hidden monopoly could be achieved by controlling stock ownership behind the scenes. This would possibly be through large financial institutions such as Blackrock, Vanguard, and JP Morgan Chase. Reporters and editors who don’t parrot the owners’ line are simply fired, and banned from the mainstream media.
This phalanx of mainstream “reporters” has uniformly promoted US attacks on other countries for decades. These attacks have always targeted the natural resources of those countries, such as the oil in Iraq and Syria recently.
In John Hobson’s classic 1902 book Empire: A Study he shows that such empirial policies are driven by ultra-wealthy investors. These people control the press to control public opinion, and control the Parliament (or Congress) to control the military. They then deploy the military to steal another country’s resources. The “business expense” of such a war is shouldered by the public. The public is always told that the war is for some noble purpose, so they will approve. Lies are also fabricated to demonize the victim of the attack, helping make the attack acceptable to the public.
Former president Carter has said we are now living under an oligarchy. The clear pattern of lying by the mainstream press, and almost all politicians, certainly fits the pattern described by Hobson.
It seems to me an essential step forward is for the public to learn that the mainstream media is not our friend. To learn instead that it is bought and coerced, and is betraying the public, betraying journalism, betraying the Constitution’s 1st Amendment, and betraying democracy.
A tipping point can be reached, and the ultra-wealthy criminals brought to justice. For what crimes are more horrific than the massive suffering, death, and destruction caused by intentionally creating a war for profit?
I agree completely. There are still far too many people, particularly liberals, who still believe what the mainstream media is telling them, and who remain completely ignorant about what the mainstream media is NOT telling them. Whenever I recommend alternative, independent media and even give them a list or links, they don’t follow through to even check them out. Or else they look at the list of independent media sites and come back at me with objections about the source of independent media reports, or object to the source as being “far left propagana”, or some other nonsense. Their eyes are glued shut. This must change. Because it must change, I continue to support independent media and share articles and discussions like this one as much as I can, every single day. Some friends have stopped talking to me. Too bad. That won’t stop me. The truth will make you free.
Thank you for this great & necessary discussion. Some thoughts –
Experiments have shown that about 3/4 of people will submerge their own observations to join in “groupthink”. About 1/4 will not. So we would expect about 1/4 of the mainstream reporters and editors to report the full facts about the Ukraine situation. Instead, all the mainstream reports withhold central facts, lying by omission. And they often replace those fact with verifiably false claims.
This unnatural blanket uniformity implies a coordinating central control. In our corporate system, an effective hidden monopoly could be achieved by controlling stock ownership behind the scenes. This would possibly be through large financial institutions such as Blackrock, Vanguard, and JP Morgan Chase. Reporters and editors who don’t parrot the owners’ line are simply fired, and banned from the mainstream media.
This phalanx of mainstream “reporters” has uniformly promoted US attacks on other countries for decades. These attacks have always targeted the natural resources of those countries, such as the oil in Iraq and Syria recently.
In John Hobson’s classic 1902 book Empire: A Study he shows that such empirial policies are driven by ultra-wealthy investors. These people control the press to control public opinion, and control the Parliament (or Congress) to control the military. They then deploy the military to steal another country’s resources. The “business expense” of such a war is shouldered by the public. The public is always told that the war is for some noble purpose, so they will approve. Lies are also fabricated to demonize the victim of the attack, helping make the attack acceptable to the public.
Former president Carter has said we are now living under an oligarchy. The clear pattern of lying by the mainstream press, and almost all politicians, certainly fits the pattern described by Hobson. A collection of facts about the history and origins of “our” war profiteers, including further information from Hobson’s work and a link to his book online, are at War Profiteer Story.
hXXps://warprofiteerstory.blogspot.com
It seems to me an essential step forward is for the public to learn that the mainstream media is not our friend. To learn instead that it is bought and coerced, and is betraying the public, betraying journalism, betraying the Constitution’s 1st Amendment, and betraying democracy.
A tipping point can be reached, and the ultra-wealthy criminals brought to justice. For what crimes are more horrific than the massive suffering, death, and destruction caused by intentionally creating a war for profit?
Excellent! Thanks.
Joe Lauria & Staff, Thank You for this broadcast. Each speaker brought such unique brilliance to the discussion. I have admired Chris Hedges for a long time, I actually voted for Dr. Jill Stein, I’ve been hot & cold with Scott Ritter (and this discussion pointed out to me why!) but still marvel at his knowledge, George Galloway is a relative newcomer to me but I really appreciate his point of view and how he expresses it. Joe Lauria, yes, very depressing indeed and yet this discussion was healing in a way, especially the support for Julian Assange. You all were the perfect blend and I am left with appreciation for this listening opportunity. Thank You.
I am surprised that you have never heard of George Galloway, but glad you got a chance to hear him. I don’t agree with all of his politics, but I support his right to have access to the public and he always has a healthy disrespect for authority. I am liking Scott Ritter more an more because his unique point of view due to his knowledge of how military thinking works. I thought Jill Stein talked too much, but she was articulate and clear about her environmental causes. Hedges is good most of the time and has been for as long as I have followed him. Again, I have some political differences with him, but only a few. The current atmosphere of censorship and smearing of independent journalists is very dangerous indeed. The government is hoping to shut people up by torturing Julian Assange. All the more reason for all of us to refuse to be silenced.
At the end of the discussion I found myself very uncomfortable with the position taken by Chris Hedges and Jill Stein. Chris Hedges because of his support for the union vote against Amazon in particular. He came out with that stance immediately after it happened. I’d be most uncomfortable if I worked for a company and such a union took over. Higher wages and benefits? Amazon’s wages and benefits are already the highest in the market. And Jill just seemed to be angry. Thanks always for Scott Ritter. George Galloway was certainly a favorite. The ‘shoe has to fit’ and it didn’t with Chris Hedges. Nor Jill Stein. A vote to unionize at a company that has offered some of the highest wages and benefits makes no sense. Follow them on a site where they are commiserating together as on ‘The People for Bernie Sanders”… Bernie was even going to meet with them. Bernie is Socialist/Communist. He has said he doesn’t believe in Capitalism. Let’s get to the truth. At the end Joe was not feeling good about what had been said. I agree 100%.
But not necessarily for the reason you might suppose.
I am a socialist. I despise capitalism. Bernie Sanders is not a socialist. He is a charlatan. Your impression about Amazon is completely false. Amazon treats its employees like chattel. It is the largest automated sweatshop in the world. You also misunderstand what Joe was expressing at the end, too. He wasn’t uncomfortable with his guests. He is uncomfortable about the hellish conditions we are currently enduring and I cannot blame him for that. I totally disagree with your erroneous perspective.
Carolyn, you nailed it!!!
From another article on unionizing Amazon by Chris Hedges, Dorothy commented on it with her anti-union , and for that matter, chastised Chris Hedges and CN for the article.
I replied to her comment on that article.
I proudly voted for Jill Stein in 2012 and 2016 and will do it two years henceforth if Jill runs again!
As always, I find myself in total agreement with Jill Stein all the way up until she starts to advocate for “ranked choice voting”. Then I have to push back. The precise voting method that “ranked choice voting” proponants (there are many, many kinds of ranked voting methods) are usually advocating for is known technically as Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). IRV has been used in many governments around the world for a long time now and we can assess its empirical track record at making more than two parties competitive in single-winner (i.e., non-proportional) elections. The record is not good. While IRV is a mild improvement over our standard plurality voting method, it brings with it almost as many election pathologies as it resolves–it is certainly NOT true that it eliminates tactical voting and makes it “safe” to honestly rank your choices, as Jill and other IRV advocates are fond of claiming. Instead, the sum of its tactical voting incentives and pathological election outcomes is that practically everywhere that IRV has been used it has MAINTAINED two-party domination. The Australian House has used IRV for over a century now and it’s been controlled by two parties for essentially the entire time. This is an especially instructive case because Australia actually has proportional representation in other areas of government where other governmental bodies have five or six parties elected at any time, yet even in a political system such as this IRV reproduces two-party domination in the body where it is used. Jill Stein and especially the Green Party have got to stop shooting themselves in the feet pushing a subpar alternative voting method that is never going to succeed at empowering them.
Make no mistake, voting method reform is perhaps the single most important reform that Americans could obtain to make their electoral politics responsive again, but it is absolutely vital that we pick a voting method that is actually up to the task of getting third parties elected in single-winner elections. Proportional representation can accomplish multi-party representation easily but that it is generally a much more difficult reform to obtain, and we have many single-winner offices like governorships, presidencies, etc. that can simply never be made proportional. We MUST pick a good single-winner voting method. Every third party advocate out there, no matter what party they align with, owes it to themselves to get educated on the failings of IRV and learn about some of the other alternative voting methods that actually stand a chance at getting third parties elected, particularly in the class of rating-based voting methods that includes Approval, Score, and STAR voting.
A sad commentary.
A totally avoidable war following an arduous evasion of peace terms as plain as the nose on your face.
What is this fight about? Is it essential to U.S. and Ukrainian security that NATO attain future rights to dot Ukraine with military bases and missiles? That Ukraine retain the right to shell and harass Russian sympathizers in its Eastern oblasts? Whose only crime has been rebelling against the 2014 overthrow of a government that they had overwhelmingly elected?
Why not declare Ukrainian neutrality and give the Eastern oblasts the degree of self-determination called for in the Minsk Accords of 2015? That would have cinched the peace, and averted the human catastrophe and economic dislocations created by this conflict, which is being carried out in an area that is far beyond the traditional defense perimeters of the United States.
Fantastic discussion – thank you Joe and Elisabeth, Chris, George, Jill and Scott! Every one of you is a voice of realism. I don’t care how downbeat it appears to be, I still prefer reality to the weird mix-up of fantasies we get from the msm. Collapse is essentially the devolution from complexity to simplicity. It will be messy but simplicity is livable, especially since, as Jill quoted from MLK, the choice is chaos or community. Community is something that every individual can contribute to right down at their own front door (or their own car door or tent door or at the door of the homeless shelter). Community is where you resist the emotions of anger and look after your neighbour. We will all die sometime, and no-one knows when that comes to each of us, but it’s what we do with the time before that day – have we contributed to something that will ripple out for the good of others? It’s something to take hold of.
From one who wishes he had been one of the 100M who had stuck to the guns of their own critical analyses, and not been talked into voting for the “least-worst” candidate of a long extant, fraudulent ‘republocracy’.
Jill Stein and Scott Ritter are my front-runner candidates for an actually overt, united in truth, single third party; desperately and immediately needed, if an expanded and truly inclusive electoral system, which has all the actual need interests of the entirety of the nation at heart, has any chance of coming to fruition.
I voted for Jill Stein in 2012 and was castigated, by one and all, for ‘giving’ the election to the already proven sell-out of sell-outs.
I’ve heard Chris Hedges say he is not a politician, so who is ‘left’ of the incumbent “sell-out” Secretary of State?
For Democracy to be reinstated, and for the Barbarism that we have been living through, for far too long now, to be somewhat mitigated (no utopian thinking here), in time to save us from ourselves, the only progressive change that will have any positive effect will be a complete systemic change, from the bottom up.
The phrase “Never Again” sticks in the craw these days!
Joe, on writing all our materials longhand and showing them around:
I had great results in the pre-Internet days with distributing political or anti-political materials via the “Xerox Underground.” All emblazoned with the message “Copy It!” Several times, I wound up hearing back from people on the opposite coast within a very few days. And we once blocked passage of a pro-pesticide bill in Congress that way.
And or course in the pre-Internet days we had telephone trees and other methods of getting the word around.
Censorship is the weapon of dying power. It doesn’t work.
Excellent! Thanks.
This is why I print out any important articles and save them in case they are taken down. If social media won’t allow me to post them, I will scan them to pdf and email them to my entire email address list, which is much larger than my FB list of friends. Get the truth out any way you can. In the 1960s and 1970s we managed quite well with only Xerox machines and telephones.
If votiing changed anything it would be made illegal
Maricata: So said Emma Goldman!
Thanks!
They have kettled thinkers into substack.
The demise of the Anglo-US empire whether by economic collapse, nuclear war, or an uninhabitable earth climate will be the end of civilization as we know it.
The panel is correct, win, lose or draw, the fight must go on, and truth is our only weapon.
If the economy/welfare state collapses and there is a violent uprising, as Scott Ritter suggests, would most people prefer a police state to chaos? There is no alternative political organization which could produce a credible government in waiting. Can anything be done about that?
Do you mean to say that China, Russia, the global South etc. do not have, nor ever had a civilization? Do they all live in caves or in trees? Students of history or archeology might want to question that assumption.
Joe,
Don’t know whether it makes much difference but the live stream is ‘only’ 1:56:56, but it streamed as something an hour longer, which might affect access, bandwidth and such. Just so’s you know.
Really happy to see this panel at this time. Well done CN!
Thanks. The YouTube video that you can see now and in the future is 1:57:50 with no access problems.
I do “tweet”, because I latched on early to rational, well-informed voices like Scott, CN, Chris Hedges, John Pilger, Caitlin Johnstone, Richard Medhurst, Matt Taibbi, WikiLeaks, government officials (it’s well to know what they want us to think) and a host of others on all points of the spectrum. The trolling is silly and generally ignorable, but the ability to quickly pick up on news and viewpoints I could not otherwise have seen has been very enlightening. I’ve grieved it’s gradual dismantling, but it’s not gone yet. Telegram is ok, but nowhere near as open and integrated, so there is more violent and vengeful conversation there than I’d seen on Twitter. The world is in a historic turning. Hoping it’s not our last. Thanks again for having this conversation!
THANKS SO MUCH!! It’s heartening to hear so many voices. of truth and reason in one place. Thanks to each and every one of you for your constant pursuit of the truth in these perilous times in which truth is so often the enemy. It’s inspiring to hear Jill’s example of the people getting the message despite the lack of support by corporate media. I’ll spread this as far and wide as I can, even though most of my activist friends are burning out by the day. We have to keep on plugging the truth. It’s our only hope. I can’t thank all of you enough!
Thanks for including Scott in this and doing it. Jill said something at the end I use to echo for years and that was the fact that 100 million folk don’t vote. I use to think that mattered. I’ve come to think that even if they did it would be the same or worse. Look no further than the last 5 elections around the world where turnout is above 70% and even mandatory and still nobody is happy. As has been echoed by many we are not going to vote are way out of this. Of course the idea of censorship, de platforming and erasing has been going on for some time and the manufacturing of consent always churning. Robert Reich’s piece in the Guardian is a perfect illustration of just how far the liberals, democrats and progressives have fallen. Shocking to say the least and more so to any that would support it. Trump derangement has had a terrible effect on our society
Lots of people vote for parties other than the Republicans and Democrats. I have voted exclusively for the Socialist Equality Party for the last 20 years. I am sure that lots of people are voting for different parties and also writing in candidates. In California, if we cannot get enough signature to get the SEP on the ballot (which requirement is completely undemocratic), we swear in electors. If we get as many elector signatures as the state has electoral votes, the write-ins of our party MUST by law be counted and recorded.
This was a most enlightening and lively panel discussion! The choice of participants might seem to many to be incongruous, but all of the panelists, despite different perspectives, are united in opposing censorship and have very interesting things to say. We need to hear different perspectives and the differences between people like Scott Ritter, Chris Hedges, George Galloway, and Jill Stein are clearly expressed and informative. Congratulations to Consortium News for hosting this group.
I am VERY much looking forward to this, but work commitments mean I can’t watch it live. I hope and trust it will continue to be available as a recording and/or transcript. I am very grateful that CN continues to be available, and that there are still some platforms that allow these more rational and varied points of view and well-informed input. The joint neo-con and neo-liberal agenda is frightening for all of us.
Jill speaks of the Green New Deal funding the needs of the people but that is a fraud because the Greens main funding proposal, monetary reform, is omitted from the plan. There is no way the GND would ever happen as long as the money is created by private banks. It is sad that Jill doesn’t recognize where the real power is while other activists are discovering that every issue from climate to racism is rooted in the financial system. The problem is the monetary system, seriously challenged by loss of global dominance and resource depletion now threatens more control with Central Bank Digital Currency.
Greening the Dollar changes the monetary system from a private for-profit system to a public for-care system. It is the ONLY sustainable way to fund the needs of the people and planet. Awareness of the money issue is growing, and Greens could step into a leadership role by bringing this long-deferred solution into the light…but the current leadership actively ignores it.
Tnx CN/ Participants (incl Public Commentary)
Mr Switzer, Sir… Never seen a POLL ASKING CITS: “Is US Treasury Dept under Fed Public or Privately Owned?”
I believe Results might surprise!
I’m a lifelong journalist and lived in Europe for 25 years, now cover New York energy and related public policy for a group of trade publications. I don’t watch any TV and can’t read any mainstream press coverage of war and politics because it pollutes my soul and takes too much effort to parse the reality from the disinformation/misinformation mix.
Amen. I thought I was the only one.
Interesting that 3pm British Summer Time Good Friday is the traditional timing for the (in UK) reenactment of the cucifiction. Jesus was not the first dissenter. He fell foul of the establishment because he did not go along with the ‘an eye for an eye’ principle. He was betrayed because he was not radical enough and for ’30 pieces of silver’. Brought ie dragged before the ‘authorities’, the law had to be applied to the letter. Some washed their hands but accepted he had blasphemed (or whatever).
No one knows for certain whether any of the above happened but, today, Julian Assange is in that position. Having tried to open our eyes, he has spent three Easters under arbitrary arrest, having been dragged from the Ecuadorian embassy by British Secret Service, despite his asylum status, for money paid by USA to the Ecuadorian president and on the ‘evidence’ of an absolute liar from Iceland.
You could not make it up.
That sounds like an amazing panel. Looking forward to it!
There is a vengeance in arming Ukraine and attacking “Putin.” Imperialists intended to absorb Russia into a homogeneous power structure. Putin set back their plans.
A sobering report from Russell Bentley yesterday. As he says, the future of the world will be determined in the Donbas.
hxxps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIfXL5Nagy4
Donbass: The Final Battle – Mariupol – Prisoners, Biolabs
thankyou very much for posting the russel link.Had wondered as to his well being for some time having looked for him on youtube and seeing nothing.Glad to see he is alive and well .Forthright as ever.
I strongly urge your inclusion, or at least reference to, Gilbert Doctorow’s most recent depiction of the full-scale confrontation of the wounded hegemon that reveals the reality of the choice of whether there will be global negotiation and reduction of warfare — or an absolute road to our demise.
At a time when the European -US umbilical cord was starting to weaken (post-Brexit and Trump), the Ukrainian-Russian horror show has proven to be the instrument for the extension of American Empire to all of Europe. Perfectly timed, perfectly executed, the bonds that tied Europe to us are now chains. It seems to me that the U.S. has taken the calculated risk of driving Russia to China in exchange for the colonization of Europe.
Can we talk a little about the ultimate victory of the gas/oil industry and how it contributed to this annexation of Europe… and how all environmental progress has been set back years?
I’m sure the folks in Poland and Finland are worried sick that they will be invaded by US troops any minute now. After all, Putin is too busy keeping the “peace” in Ukraine.
Thank you. I’m looking forward to this panel!
Behind our “national security” based censorship of Julian, Scott and all the people hounded and imprisoned for telling the truth is
a NEOCON State Dept run foreign policy that allies itself with NAZIs in Ukraine not the people of this country….
I find it interesting that Trump read and used peoples’ unhappiness over endless regime change wars to gain support.
We have sick individuals running foreign policy. This hatred of all things Russian denies the cultural essence of a country that Van Cliburn shared with us in the 1950’s. He’d be heartbroken to know what’s going on today.
Silencing of honest voices. imprisoning our whistleblowers intended, from the beginning, to facilitate what? Short term financial interests of corporations who lie about everything to us, while ignoring existential threat of climate disruption and nuclear war?
Wagner’s Götterdämmerung comes to mind. The “banality of evil” comes to mind.
The individual sickness in the mind of these NEOCONS controls the direction of our financial resources for 332M people. And far too many of us believe the lies. Thanks to CN for pushing back hard.
Elon Musk is apparently offering to buy all of TWITTER – a better reason to exit TWITTER.
Please ask Scott and other panelists to share other similar platforms that are not run by the corporate shills who silence commenters.
Thanks!
Musk is just “weird” enough to buy Twitter in order to maintain one social network absolutely free from censorship. Libertarian ideas are nowadays more and more often found in the beds of male chauvinist conservatives. I wouldn’t bet on Musk as a closet libertarian, but I can fantasize.
Great comment. For the record, I don’t Tweet. I had an account for about 15 minutes years ago and hated it, so I cancelled. We do indeed live in a sick society run by sociopaths (and a few psychopaths). This is terminal capitalism in its death throes, and it will take everyone with it unless we work to stop it. We must continually post independent media stories and webinars as much as we can. We must shove them in the faces of those hypnotized by their TV screens. Time is running out.
Yes, I agree, I don’t get Twitter and, as a result, do not tweet. I leave that to the birds.