offguardian--2020-08-08--Our beautifully democratic wars

Our beautifully democratic wars

This week , on the seventy-fifth anniversary of America ’ s militarily unnecessary [ 1 ] use of the atom bomb at Hiroshima , John Pilger wrote an excellent piece on the horrors of that day and its long bleak aftermath , linking them to the insanity of the drive currently underway for war on China .
Our passive consent is once more being manufactured for another Empire Strike .
Vilification of China in mainstream Western media , right wing and ‘ liberal ’ alike , is the new normal .
Even the de rigeur demonising of Putin now takes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ … intelligence sources say … it is believed that … ” – of dastardly doings by the Yellow Man [ 2 ] in Beijing .
Slavoj Zizek said it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism .
Since its non negotiable demands for profits appear as existential truths – “ of course we can ’ t produce wealth if it isn ’ t profitable to do so … of course we can ’ t feed the world , have clean streets or breathe clean air : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” – an obscene global order is defended as far from perfect , to be sure , but the best one attainable by mere mortals … …while those , like Jeremy Corbyn , who beg to differ draw the fury of an establishment which , however divided on lesser issues , will close ranks on matters of non negotiable importance … .
…ditto those , like Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping , whose very acceptance of the logic of capital in its monopoly phase of imperialism puts them on a collision course with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ partners in London and Paris … …ditto those like Julian Assange , who breach media omerta to deliver hard evidence on how the state monopoly on violence is actually exercised , and for that crime must be humiliated , reviled and finally broken .
[ 3 ] That closing of ranks by our rulers is why the substantive positions of the Daily Mail on the one hand , Guardian on the other , are essentially the same in respect of those named in the previous three paragraphs .
Sadly , such unity is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deem themselves critical thinkers , as a sign of incontestable truth .
Even when such ‘ truth ’ can not stand up to the slightest scrutiny .
This from my post of July 15 : Unsurprisingly , I ’ ve had not a single reader take me up on this .
The two articles – and thousands like it which make up a relentless demonising of America ’ s greatest military rival ( Russia ) and its greatest economic rival ( China ) – are spun from thin air by intelligence sources and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that they can not be trusted .
I ’ ve written many posts , most frequently on Syria , about “ our ” wars on the global south , waged in the name of lofty ideals but always , in ways direct or indirect [ 4 ] , in the interests of profit .
But now we are not speaking of states helpless in the face of the West ’ s might .
Moral aspects of 500 years of colonial then imperialist [ 5 ] bullying aside , the difference between Latin America @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hand , China and Russia on the other , points us to the reality that not since 1945 has a Western power confronted an adversary of remotely comparable weight .
So why now ?
One answer is that the MAD ( mutually assured destruction ) doctrine is being challenged , in the corridors of US power , as never before .
See this piece from 2014 by former Reagan appointee , Paul Craig Roberts .
Those within the Beltway , and across the Potomac in the Pentagon , who believe a nuclear war @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are no longer outliers on the far fringes of Sensible Discourse .
Here ’ s a second , complementary , answer from my January post , Talking WW3 Blues .
Let ’ s take Russia first .
This from a 2018 piece , again by Paul Craig Roberts : Two factors are driving the world to nuclear war .
One is the constant stream of insults , false accusations and broken agreements that the West has been dumping on Russia year after year .
The other is Russia ’ s response , or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thereof .
… the Russian government ’ s factual , diplomatic , and legal responses actually produce more provocations and insults .
See here and here and here .
Russia should turn her back on the West .
The future lies in the East of which Russia is a part .
She should focus on the partnership with China , and relationships in the East , and stop responding to blatantly false accusations and provocative insults .
Russia can be part of the West only by surrender to Washington ’ s hegemony .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ figured out that Washington is determined to marginalize and isolate her , discredit her government , dislodge Putin and install a puppet [ or ] failing these efforts , push her to the point that her only alternatives are to surrender or go to war .
Did it ever occur to Lavrov or Putin that Russia ’ s President would be called a murderer by a British foreign secretary , on the basis of a fabrication created by the British government ?
Are Lavrov and Putin finally getting the message that it is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when the West has no respect for either ?
Like his fellow Reagan appointee , Russia expert Stephen Cohen – and for that matter Reagan himself – Roberts had thought the cold war over with the fall of the USSR .
Which goes to show that none of these three – for two of whom I have considerable respect – truly understood what the first cold war was about .
Suppose the old cold war was not about ‘ defending our freedom ’ .
Suppose it was instead about one sixth of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vast resources and markets – being closed off to Profit .
Why suppose any such thing ?
Because for reasons beyond my current remit , capitalism ’ s inner laws of motion demand ceaseless accumulation , even as they drive a tendency to falling profits .
I haven ’ t the space here to prove these things , nor do I ask anyone to accept them on my say so .
I ask only that for purposes of inquiry we suppose them true .
Things that don ’ t otherwise make much sense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the old cold war for western capitalism .
He forced the USSR into ever greater arms-spend when every rouble on defence bled the Soviet economy whereas , such is the insanity of capitalism , every dollar the Pentagon spent boosted a $ 10trn for-profit arms sector , biggest driver of the US economy .
By this and other means – sanctions , funding terror in Afghanistan , manipulating world oil prices – Washington , aided by the USSR ’ s ossified leadership and brittle top-down economy , prevailed .
Such was Reagan ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nature of his office , he genuinely believed the cold war over .
And so for a while it seemed .
As free-market capitalism sent Russia into a tailspin of chaos and gangsterism , Yeltsin did everything asked of him .
He did his own rolling over on Yugoslavia , its dismemberment exposing Russia while unleashing the corrupt state of Kosovo .
With touching faith he believed Clinton on NATO ‘ not advancing an inch ’ , and opened up the economy .
That ’ s where things went off-script for the West @ @ @ @ @ @ @ squadrons of glassy-eyed Chicago Schoolers really do buy their own voodoo economics .
I ’ m even prepared to deem some at least of the IMF Taliban naive enough to toke the smoke on liberalisation as economic cure-all .
But to believe the same of the wolves of Wall Street ?
Sorry , no can do .
For them , liberalisation means nothing if not boosted bottom lines and eye-watering bonuses .
Read Naomi Klein : a good writer who documents meticulously .
Chapters 10-11 of The Shock Doctrine chart exactly what went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ privatisation , you see , had been stamped ‘ for western hands ’ .
Instead – this is funny if you ’ re in a good mood – they were trousered by ex KGB ; the now semi-feudal oligarchy that blossomed and flourished under Yeltsin .
In comes strongman Putin .
He cracks down on corruption ( but must play a long game , so is with breathtaking chutzpah accused of deeds done by his predecessor to nods in Washington ) .
He fixes a torched economy , allowing him among other things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would he want to do that ?
With Russia once more a global player , he stands up to NATO and effects his own rapprochement , with China , in part discussed in Perilous Days .
All this , mind , coinciding with the slow economic decline – making it triply dangerous – of the most powerful and reckless nation on earth .
As you see , I ’ m less inclined to look favourably on Reagan than Roberts and Cohen are .
Less inclined too to take the West ’ s rationale @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
On the other hand I ’ m kinder on Putin and Lavrov , whom I watch with guarded approval .
But what about China ?
This from The Guardian two weeks ago : And this from The Grayzone last December : You believe the Guardian if you like .
For me , its credibility on matters of core importance ran out years ago .
But even if every word on the Uighurs , the Spratly Isles ( Washington ’ s ‘ justification ’ for insane but not illogical acts of provocation in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ TikTok and Huawei spyware and all the rest of the Empire Narrative were true , they ’ d add precisely nothing to our understanding of why America , its lesser partners riding its coat tails , is gunning for China .
Here are Medea Benjamin and Nicholas Davies , writing in CounterPunch on the eve of that seventy-fifth anniversary of the Japanese people ’ s living nightmare : …until recently , Western firms were glad to make the most of China ’ s huge pool of cheap labor , weak workplace and environmental @ @ @ @ @ @ @ So what has changed ?
Companies like Apple , once glad to outsource US jobs , are now confronting the reality that they have also outsourced skills and technology .
The global rollout of 5G is a flashpoint not because EMF radiation may be dangerous , a real concern , but because Huawei and ZTE have patented critical infrastructure , leaving Silicon Valley in the unfamiliar position of playing catch-up .
Also , if 5G is built by Huawei and ZTE instead of AT & T and Verizon , the U.S. government can @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the NSA to spy on us all , so is stoking fears that China could insert its own back doors .
Left out of the discussion is the real solution : repeal the Patriot Act and ensure technology used in our daily lives is secure from the prying eyes of all governments .
China is investing in infrastructure across the world .
138 countries have joined its Belt and Road Initiative ( BRI ) , to connect Asia with Africa and Europe via land and sea .
Obama and Trump tried to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China .
The US military-industrial complex needs more substantial enemies to justify budget-busting costs .
Lockheed Martin is not ready to switch from billion-dollar warplanes , on cost-plus contracts , to wind turbines and solar panels .
The only targets to justify a $ 740-billion military budget and 800 overseas bases are Russia and China .
Both expanded their military budgets after 2011 , when the US and allies hi-jacked the Arab Spring to launch proxy wars in Libya , where China had substantial oil interests , and Syria , a long-term Russian @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s military budget was $ 261 billion .
That of the US is $ 732 billion .
The U.S. still spends more on its military than the ten next largest powers combined .
Russian and Chinese military forces are almost entirely defensive , emphasising anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems .
Neither Russia nor China has invested in carrier strike groups or U.S.-style expeditionary forces to attack countries on the other side of the planet .
But they do have the means to defend themselves from U.S. attack and both are nuclear powers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a more serious prospect than the US has faced anywhere since WW2 .
China and Russia are deadly serious about defending themselves , but it is U.S. imperialism and militarism driving the escalating tensions .
In fact , as with Stephen Cohen and Paul Craig Roberts , Benjamin and Davies are accurate but incomplete in their reasoning .
For a deeper analysis try Brazilian journalist Pepe Escobar , the American economist Michael Hudson and Greece ’ s former finance minister , Yanis Varoufakis .
The first two – see my January Reads post @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Eurasia rising , and consequent threat to dollar hegemony .
So does the third but , see the Global Minotaur , it points also to a reality not widely grasped .
China ’ s domestic markets can ’ t yet absorb the vast profits its capitalists accumulate , courtesy China ’ s role as workshop of the 21st century world .
As with other capitalist economies , these profits are recycled through the US economy in the form of Treasury Bonds .
This places China ( and others ) in a weird @ @ @ @ @ @ @ advantage .
An elephant-in-the-room truth about the US Economy , the first ever to make colossal debt an advantage , is that it will never repay those bonds – though for now it does pay interest on them .
Washington , in its lawless arrogance , could easily fabricate a pretext for turning off the tap altogether .
One way of looking at the Belt and Road Initiative Benjamin and Davies cite is as evidence of Moscow and Beijing making precisely the tilt from the West ( and dollar hegemony ) which Paul @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as already happening .
So let ’ s set aside the blather on human rights , electoral interference ( on which Israel and USA have far darker records ) and fictitious aggressions .
Let ’ s instead get real on what is happening and why .
The stakes could hardly be higher .
[ 1 ] Eisenhower : ‘ The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn ’ t necessary to hit them with that awful thing … ’ Admiral Leahy , Chief of Staff to Roosevelt and Truman : ‘ … @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was of no material assistance in our war against Japan … ’ More here .
A far likelier reading of those atrocities is that , as cold war dawned , America wished to show the USSR what it and it alone could do .
[ 2 ] Only the very naive would fail to note the deep wells of orientalism now being tapped in the manipulations of our narrative managers .
[ 3 ] It ’ s mooted by some that all charges against Assange may be dropped .
It ’ s too @ @ @ @ @ @ @ logic .
Mission accomplished : a chilling message sent to the world .
Fuck with the US Empire at your peril .
[ 4 ] Direct gains to imperialism may include oil ( as resource or commodity ) or arms-length access to cheap labour .
Indirect gains may include oil ( as leverage ) .
This from Stephen Gowans ’ book , Israel : a Beachhead in the Middle East : ‘ The purpose of dominating another country is to secure opportunities for business .
The dominated country may provide direct opportunities , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ opportunities in a third country [ which ] may become the target of an imperialist power because favorably placed .
Perhaps it bounds important shipping lanes and is prized as a naval base from which the movement of goods can be protected from rival imperialist powers that might choke off the flow .
Or perhaps the aim is to position military power at a shipping choke point .
Or maybe the territory is close to enticing targets that could be absorbed through military coercion .
Maybe the dominated country is close to another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There are scores of reasons why an imperialist power might dominate a country that offers no immediate or direct economic benefit , but all are traceable to a perceived economic advantage for the dominating country ’ s major investors.
’ [ 5 ] For my purposes the distinction between colonialism and modern imperialism ( the north-south export of monopoly capital , and south-north repatriation of profits ) can be reduced to that between direct rule and financial domination .
Both necessitate , in logic and in historic fact , military and other forms @ @ @ @

Philip Roddis
Of course the people don’t want war. That is understood … But after all it is the leaders who determine the policy and it is a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, a parliament or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.
>Herman Goering, on trial for his life at Nuremberg
This week, on the seventy-fifth anniversary of America’s militarily unnecessary[1] use of the atom bomb at Hiroshima, John Pilger wrote an excellent piece on the horrors of that day and its long bleak aftermath, linking them to the insanity of the drive currently underway for war on China.
(It’s in Consortium. The days are gone when Guardian or Mirror gave house room to Pilger.)
Our passive consent is once more being manufactured for another Empire Strike. Vilification of China in mainstream Western media, right wing and ‘liberal’ alike, is the new normal. Even the de rigeur demonising of Putin now takes second place to evidence-lite tales – “… intelligence sources say … it is believed that …” – of dastardly doings by the Yellow Man[2] in Beijing.
(Though of course, Moscow – knowing its turn would come next – could hardly sit idly by as full scale war was waged on China.)
Slavoj Zizek said it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Since its non negotiable demands for profits appear as existential truths – “of course we can’t produce wealth if it isn’t profitable to do so … of course we can’t feed the world, have clean streets or breathe clean air: who will pay for such things?” – an obscene global order is defended as far from perfect, to be sure, but the best one attainable by mere mortals …
…while those, like Jeremy Corbyn, who beg to differ draw the fury of an establishment which, however divided on lesser issues, will close ranks on matters of non negotiable importance ….
…ditto those, like Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping, whose very acceptance of the logic of capital in its monopoly phase of imperialism puts them on a collision course with Wall St, Washington and their junior partners in London and Paris …
…ditto those like Julian Assange, who breach media omerta to deliver hard evidence on how the state monopoly on violence is actually exercised, and for that crime must be humiliated, reviled and finally broken.[3]
That closing of ranks by our rulers is why the substantive positions of the Daily Mail on the one hand, Guardian on the other, are essentially the same in respect of those named in the previous three paragraphs. Sadly, such unity is widely taken, including by people who deem themselves critical thinkers, as a sign of incontestable truth.
Even when such ‘truth’ cannot stand up to the slightest scrutiny. This from my post of July 15:
Try today’s Guardian and tell me where – in the story on Russian state-sponsored hackers targeting Covid-19 vaccine researchers, or that on Russia interfering in the 2019 election – an iota of evidence is produced.
Unsurprisingly, I’ve had not a single reader take me up on this. The two articles – and thousands like it which make up a relentless demonising of America’s greatest military rival (Russia) and its greatest economic rival (China) – are spun from thin air by intelligence sources and journalists who have shown time and again that they cannot be trusted.
I’ve written many posts, most frequently on Syria, about “our” wars on the global south, waged in the name of lofty ideals but always, in ways direct or indirect[4], in the interests of profit.
But now we are not speaking of states helpless in the face of the West’s might. Moral aspects of 500 years of colonial then imperialist[5] bullying aside, the difference between Latin America and the Middle East on the one hand, China and Russia on the other, points us to the reality that not since 1945 has a Western power confronted an adversary of remotely comparable weight.
So why now?
One answer is that the MAD (mutually assured destruction) doctrine is being challenged, in the corridors of US power, as never before. See this piece from 2014 by former Reagan appointee, Paul Craig Roberts. Those within the Beltway, and across the Potomac in the Pentagon, who believe a nuclear war with Russia and/or China can be won are no longer outliers on the far fringes of Sensible Discourse.
(Witness presidential contender Hillary Clinton’s plan to impose no-fly zones on Syria, a move that could not but provoke head on confrontation with Russian forces there at the behest of its lawful but equally demonised government.)
Here’s a second, complementary, answer from my January post, Talking WW3 Blues.
I can think of no precedent for a pre-eminent world power sitting back as the economic basis of its military might ebbs away. And Russia and China have time on their side.
Let’s take Russia first. This from a 2018 piece, again by Paul Craig Roberts:
Two factors are driving the world to nuclear war. One is the constant stream of insults, false accusations and broken agreements that the West has been dumping on Russia year after year. The other is Russia’s response, or, perhaps more correctly, the lack thereof. … the Russian government’s factual, diplomatic, and legal responses actually produce more provocations and insults. See here and here and here. Russia should turn her back on the West. The future lies in the East of which Russia is a part. She should focus on the partnership with China, and relationships in the East, and stop responding to blatantly false accusations and provocative insults. Russia can be part of the West only by surrender to Washington’s hegemony. [Russia should] by now have figured out that Washington is determined to marginalize and isolate her, discredit her government, dislodge Putin and install a puppet [or] failing these efforts, push her to the point that her only alternatives are to surrender or go to war. Did it ever occur to Lavrov or Putin that Russia’s President would be called a murderer by a British foreign secretary, on the basis of a fabrication created by the British government? Are Lavrov and Putin finally getting the message that it is self-defeating to appeal to facts and law when the West has no respect for either?
Like his fellow Reagan appointee, Russia expert Stephen Cohen – and for that matter Reagan himself – Roberts had thought the cold war over with the fall of the USSR. Which goes to show that none of these three – for two of whom I have considerable respect – truly understood what the first cold war was about.
Here’s something I wrote three years ago:
Suppose the old cold war was not about ‘defending our freedom’. Suppose it was instead about one sixth of the world’s land mass – its vast resources and markets – being closed off to Profit. Why suppose any such thing? Because for reasons beyond my current remit, capitalism’s inner laws of motion demand ceaseless accumulation, even as they drive a tendency to falling profits. I haven’t the space here to prove these things, nor do I ask anyone to accept them on my say so. I ask only that for purposes of inquiry we suppose them true. Things that don’t otherwise make much sense suddenly snap into focus. Reagan won the old cold war for western capitalism. He forced the USSR into ever greater arms-spend when every rouble on defence bled the Soviet economy whereas, such is the insanity of capitalism, every dollar the Pentagon spent boosted a $10trn for-profit arms sector, biggest driver of the US economy. By this and other means – sanctions, funding terror in Afghanistan, manipulating world oil prices – Washington, aided by the USSR’s ossified leadership and brittle top-down economy, prevailed. Such was Reagan’s vacuity, and such the figurehead nature of his office, he genuinely believed the cold war over. And so for a while it seemed. As free-market capitalism sent Russia into a tailspin of chaos and gangsterism, Yeltsin did everything asked of him. He did his own rolling over on Yugoslavia, its dismemberment exposing Russia while unleashing the corrupt state of Kosovo. With touching faith he believed Clinton on NATO ‘not advancing an inch’, and opened up the economy. That’s where things went off-script for the West. I don’t doubt that squadrons of glassy-eyed Chicago Schoolers really do buy their own voodoo economics. I’m even prepared to deem some at least of the IMF Taliban naive enough to toke the smoke on liberalisation as economic cure-all. But to believe the same of the wolves of Wall Street? Sorry, no can do. For them, liberalisation means nothing if not boosted bottom lines and eye-watering bonuses. Read Naomi Klein: a good writer who documents meticulously. Chapters 10-11 of The Shock Doctrine chart exactly what went down in Russia. The fruits of privatisation, you see, had been stamped ‘for western hands’. Instead – this is funny if you’re in a good mood – they were trousered by ex KGB; the now semi-feudal oligarchy that blossomed and flourished under Yeltsin. In comes strongman Putin. He cracks down on corruption (but must play a long game, so is with breathtaking chutzpah accused of deeds done by his predecessor to nods in Washington). He fixes a torched economy, allowing him among other things to beef up defence – now why would he want to do that? With Russia once more a global player, he stands up to NATO and effects his own rapprochement, with China, in part discussed in Perilous Days. All this, mind, coinciding with the slow economic decline – making it triply dangerous – of the most powerful and reckless nation on earth.
As you see, I’m less inclined to look favourably on Reagan than Roberts and Cohen are. Less inclined too to take the West’s rationale for Cold War 1 at face value. On the other hand I’m kinder on Putin and Lavrov, whom I watch with guarded approval.
(Not that this matters much. As with Syria, my alarm and disgust at Western recklessness and venality are not premised on a Russia pure as the driven snow. And as with Assad, my refusal to damn Putin is not premised on his combining wisdom, nerves of steel and a pure heart with the strategic vision of a chess grand master.)
But what about China? This from The Guardian two weeks ago:
It has taken too many horrors, but at last the world is paying heed to China’s treatment of the Uighurs. Satellite pictures of detention camps, and procurement requests for spiked clubs, have been supplemented by leaked internal documents warning “allow no escapes”, and growing testimony from relatives and former inmates whose desperation has overcome their fear of retaliation for speaking out.
And this from The Grayzone last December:
Claims that China has detained millions of Uyghur Muslims are based largely on two studies. A closer look at these papers reveals US government backing, absurdly shoddy methodologies, and a rapture-ready evangelical researcher named Adrian Zenz.
You believe the Guardian if you like. For me, its credibility on matters of core importance ran out years ago. But even if every word on the Uighurs, the Spratly Isles (Washington’s ‘justification’ for insane but not illogical acts of provocation in the South China Sea), on TikTok and Huawei spyware and all the rest of the Empire Narrative were true, they’d add precisely nothing to our understanding of why America, its lesser partners riding its coat tails, is gunning for China.
Here are Medea Benjamin and Nicholas Davies, writing in CounterPunch on the eve of that seventy-fifth anniversary of the Japanese people’s living nightmare:
…until recently, Western firms were glad to make the most of China’s huge pool of cheap labor, weak workplace and environmental protections, and growing consumer market … So what has changed? Companies like Apple, once glad to outsource US jobs, are now confronting the reality that they have also outsourced skills and technology. The global rollout of 5G is a flashpoint not because EMF radiation may be dangerous, a real concern, but because Huawei and ZTE have patented critical infrastructure, leaving Silicon Valley in the unfamiliar position of playing catch-up. Also, if 5G is built by Huawei and ZTE instead of AT&T and Verizon, the U.S. government can no longer require “back doors” for the NSA to spy on us all, so is stoking fears that China could insert its own back doors. Left out of the discussion is the real solution: repeal the Patriot Act and ensure technology used in our daily lives is secure from the prying eyes of all governments. China is investing in infrastructure across the world. 138 countries have joined its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), to connect Asia with Africa and Europe via land and sea. Obama and Trump tried to “pivot to Asia” to confront China. The US military-industrial complex needs more substantial enemies to justify budget-busting costs. Lockheed Martin is not ready to switch from billion-dollar warplanes, on cost-plus contracts, to wind turbines and solar panels. The only targets to justify a $740-billion military budget and 800 overseas bases are Russia and China. Both expanded their military budgets after 2011, when the US and allies hi-jacked the Arab Spring to launch proxy wars in Libya, where China had substantial oil interests, and Syria, a long-term Russian ally. But in 2019, China’s military budget was $261 billion. That of the US is $732 billion. The U.S. still spends more on its military than the ten next largest powers combined. Russian and Chinese military forces are almost entirely defensive, emphasising anti-ship and anti-aircraft missile systems. Neither Russia nor China has invested in carrier strike groups or U.S.-style expeditionary forces to attack countries on the other side of the planet. But they do have the means to defend themselves from U.S. attack and both are nuclear powers, making a major war against either a more serious prospect than the US has faced anywhere since WW2. China and Russia are deadly serious about defending themselves, but it is U.S. imperialism and militarism driving the escalating tensions.
In fact, as with Stephen Cohen and Paul Craig Roberts, Benjamin and Davies are accurate but incomplete in their reasoning. For a deeper analysis try Brazilian journalist Pepe Escobar, the American economist Michael Hudson and Greece’s former finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis. The first two – see my January Reads post – site renewed Sinophobia in the context of Eurasia rising, and consequent threat to dollar hegemony.
So does the third but, see the Global Minotaur, it points also to a reality not widely grasped. China’s domestic markets can’t yet absorb the vast profits its capitalists accumulate, courtesy China’s role as workshop of the 21st century world. As with other capitalist economies, these profits are recycled through the US economy in the form of Treasury Bonds.
This places China (and others) in a weird love-hate dance with America’s dollar advantage. An elephant-in-the-room truth about the US Economy, the first ever to make colossal debt an advantage, is that it will never repay those bonds – though for now it does pay interest on them.
Washington, in its lawless arrogance, could easily fabricate a pretext for turning off the tap altogether. One way of looking at the Belt and Road Initiative Benjamin and Davies cite is as evidence of Moscow and Beijing making precisely the tilt from the West (and dollar hegemony) which Paul Craig Roberts advocates while failing to acknowledge as already happening.
So let’s set aside the blather on human rights, electoral interference (on which Israel and USA have far darker records) and fictitious aggressions. Let’s instead get real on what is happening and why.
The stakes could hardly be higher.
[1] Eisenhower: ‘The Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing …’ Admiral Leahy, Chief of Staff to Roosevelt and Truman: ‘… the barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan …’ More here. A far likelier reading of those atrocities is that, as cold war dawned, America wished to show the USSR what it and it alone could do. [2] Only the very naive would fail to note the deep wells of orientalism now being tapped in the manipulations of our narrative managers. [3] It’s mooted by some that all charges against Assange may be dropped. It’s too early to call but I see the logic. Mission accomplished: a chilling message sent to the world. Fuck with the US Empire at your peril. [4] Direct gains to imperialism may include oil (as resource or commodity) or arms-length access to cheap labour. Indirect gains may include oil (as leverage). This from Stephen Gowans’ book, Israel: a Beachhead in the Middle East:‘The purpose of dominating another country is to secure opportunities for business. The dominated country may provide direct opportunities, or be a stepping stone to profit-making opportunities in a third country [which] may become the target of an imperialist power because favorably placed. Perhaps it bounds important shipping lanes and is prized as a naval base from which the movement of goods can be protected from rival imperialist powers that might choke off the flow. Or perhaps the aim is to position military power at a shipping choke point. Or maybe the territory is close to enticing targets that could be absorbed through military coercion. Maybe the dominated country is close to another imperialism and attractive for encircling it. There are scores of reasons why an imperialist power might dominate a country that offers no immediate or direct economic benefit, but all are traceable to a perceived economic advantage for the dominating country’s major investors.’ [5] For my purposes the distinction between colonialism and modern imperialism (the north-south export of monopoly capital, and south-north repatriation of profits) can be reduced to that between direct rule and financial domination. Both necessitate, in logic and in historic fact, military and other forms of technological asymmetry.


offguardian--2020-08-08--WATCH: James Corbett on Derailing the Gates Agenda

can you spare $ 1.00 a month to support independent media Unlike the Guardian we are NOT funded by Bill @ @ @ @ @ any other NGO or government .
So a few coins in our jar to help @ @ @ @ @ appreciated .

Activist Post’s Spiro Skouris in conversation with James Corbett of the Corbett Report, discussing Bill Gate’s power, agenda, the second #ExposeBillGates day, and most importantly what we can do about it.
Follow Spiro Skouris on youtube or bitchute, and for links sources and show notes, plus an audio-only version, click here.


offguardian--2020-08-09--This Week in the Guardian #12

This Week in the Guardian #12

This week see ’ s the rise of the she-cession , a totally unharmed cat and special hugging instructions .
Every week ( or , rather , most weeks , since the coronavirus torpedoed our schedule ) , we like to highlight three or four stories that go full-Guardian , but don ’ t require an entire article of refutation .
We encourage reader-participation here , so if you come across something you feel should be included in the next edition either post a link below , or send us an e-mail .
Not a headline , or even an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Guardian US which I never knew existed before this week , and that ’ s a shame because it is a headline goldmine .
Started in February this year , Feminist Economics is not afraid of asking the real tough questions , like Why isn ’ t capitalism working for American women ?
or Is it impossible to breastfeed and have a full-time job ?
or Am I plankton ?
This week ’ s article is headlined The ‘ shecession ’ : why economic crisis is affecting women more than men @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as it sounds .
Technically , the journalism is very poor .
For one thing , the entire article hinges on this claim : But they never provide a source for this statistic .
Or explain why those numbers equal 20.5 million jobs , when official sources report over 40 million jobs have been lost .
So , the data is potentially seriously flawed .
But so is the entire premise of the article .
I mean does “ number of jobs lost = impact ” ?
If women lose 55 % of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , does that mean women are being hit harder ?
What about families and dependents ?
What if one of those women had three sons and a disabled husband who all depend on her income .
Then that one job loss has affected 4 men , but only one woman .
Can you quantify suffering like that in a complex and multi-variant world ?
Of course not .
The article itself says “ in the Great Recession , men lost twice as many jobs as women ” , but does that mean men @ @ @ @ @ @ @ No , that ’ s absurd .
So the data is flawed , and the premise ridiculous , but nevertheless they seem hellbent on making this an issue .
Having established their ( flawed ) question – “ Why are women being more affected by this situation ?
” – they don ’ t even seem to realise they already answered it , neatly and succinctly : Well , that ’ s that then .
No need for the other 2000 words at all .
It ’ s got nothing to with racism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s “ feminist economics ” .
Don ’ t be surprised if this isn ’ t the last time it makes an appearance in TWitG .
Oh it ’ s also paid-for content funded by the Open Society Foundation , in case you wanted to know .
Last week ( or maybe the week before , time does fly ) we charted the reinvention of Sir Keir Starmer through hundreds of Guardian column inches .
Your favourite Deep State-backed paper is getting right behind this particular sock puppet .
And now others @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Big Labour donors returning to party under Keir Starmer ” .
And they seem to be happy about it .
It ’ s an odd choice of headline because , while a few big-money donors are apparently returning , you ’ d think the bigger news is the working class people leaving : But who cares , right ?
Good riddance to them I say .
The last thing a political party needs is grass-roots support , and nothing spoils a working-class movement like unionising .
Don ’ t even bother reading @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the 2017 election .
The corruption is as sickening as it is obvious .
Labour , so long a lost cause , almost became something worthy under Corbyn , and now it ’ s being torn apart in front of our eyes .
We have the disgusting spectacle of a notionally “ progressive ” paper praising the knighted leader of a “ working people ’ s party ” for winning over the big-money donors who moved to Switzerland to avoid paying UK taxes .
This really is clown world .
This is technically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it and it ’ s too good to ignore .
“ Owners warned not to kiss pets after first cat infected with coronavirus in UK ” , the headline tells us .
By “ after ” , they mean three months after , because the cat was sick back in May .
Which means owners have been kissing their pets willy-nilly for weeks with no cat plague in sight .
The author doesn ’ t seem up to this simple piece of logic .
There ’ s almost too much to break down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ writing it borders on genius .
From needlessly supplying us the cat ’ s gender , place of birth and age , to the throwaway reference to the fact the cat is fine , and that they found out by accident because the Glasgow Centre of Virology Studies is apparently devoting its money and time to randomly testing cat blood samples .
The scientist is a nice find too .
It ’ s not many professionals who would have balls enough to put forward the hypothesis that “ fluffier ” cats might be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but Prof Margaret Hosie is such a person : I don ’ t know if “ fluffy ” is a scientific term , or what – if any – studies have been done correlating the amount of fluffiness with immune system response .
Prof Mosie is obviously unclear on that too , hastening to add : The cherry on top is this photo of a very unimpressed cat : It ’ s captioned “ The cat ( not pictured ) and its owners have made a full recovery.
” So not only is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s not even the right cat .
It ’ s just some stock image of some other cat .
Actually , by making sure the stock image matches the breed of the cat in the story whichever unpaid intern was tasked with putting “ cat ” into a google image search has shown an unusual level of initiative .
A likely candidate for promotion in the future .
If this cat getting mildly sick and then getting better again has worried you in any way , don ’ t worry , the Graun @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ve got a whole new article about it published yesterday : TWiTG has never once agreed with anything in the Guardian…until now .
This article on the history of British made-for-TV movie The Woman in Black is absolutely on the money .
It ’ s one of the best and scariest horror films ever made and deserves any and all praise .
I ’ m one of the few lucky enough to own it on DVD from its limited original release back in 2007 , and it ’ s a life-ruiningly frightening watch @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it now .
( Or save it for Halloween as long as the world hasn ’ t ended by then ) .
All told , a busy week for The Guardian .
And we didn ’ t even cover the specialist hugging instructions ( wash your hands and “ plan ahead ” ) or that NASA is “ joining the social justice movement ” by changing the name of the “ Eskimo Nebula ” .
Did we miss anything ?
Tell us about it in the comments below , and keep an eye @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the next issue .

This week see’s the rise of the she-cession, a totally unharmed cat and special hugging instructions.
Every week (or, rather, most weeks, since the coronavirus torpedoed our schedule), we like to highlight three or four stories that go full-Guardian, but don’t require an entire article of refutation.
We encourage reader-participation here, so if you come across something you feel should be included in the next edition either post a link below, or send us an e-mail.
Feminist Economics
Not a headline, or even an article, but actually an entire section in the Guardian US which I never knew existed before this week, and that’s a shame because it is a headline goldmine.
Started in February this year, Feminist Economics is not afraid of asking the real tough questions, like Why isn’t capitalism working for American women? or Is it impossible to breastfeed and have a full-time job? or Am I plankton?
This week’s article is headlined The ‘shecession’: why economic crisis is affecting women more than men and is exactly as enjoyable a read as it sounds.
Technically, the journalism is very poor. For one thing, the entire article hinges on this claim:
From February to May, 11.5 million women lost their jobs compared with 9 million men
But they never provide a source for this statistic. Or explain why those numbers equal 20.5 million jobs, when official sources report over 40 million jobs have been lost.
So, the data is potentially seriously flawed. But so is the entire premise of the article.
I mean does “number of jobs lost = impact”? If women lose 55% of the jobs, and men 45%, does that mean women are being hit harder?
What about families and dependents? What if one of those women had three sons and a disabled husband who all depend on her income. Then that one job loss has affected 4 men, but only one woman.
Can you quantify suffering like that in a complex and multi-variant world? Of course not.
The article itself says “in the Great Recession, men lost twice as many jobs as women”, but does that mean men were twice as affected as women? No, that’s absurd.
So the data is flawed, and the premise ridiculous, but nevertheless they seem hellbent on making this an issue. Having established their (flawed) question – “Why are women being more affected by this situation?” – they don’t even seem to realise they already answered it, neatly and succinctly:
In this economic crisis, job losses have shot across industries where women, particularly Black and Latina women, held a disproportionate number of jobs, such as hospitality, leisure and education.
Well, that’s that then. No need for the other 2000 words at all. It’s got nothing to with racism, or sexism.
Anyway, that’s “feminist economics”. Don’t be surprised if this isn’t the last time it makes an appearance in TWitG.
Oh it’s also paid-for content funded by the Open Society Foundation, in case you wanted to know.
Labour Gets Big Money Backing
Last week (or maybe the week before, time does fly) we charted the reinvention of Sir Keir Starmer through hundreds of Guardian column inches. Your favourite Deep State-backed paper is getting right behind this particular sock puppet. And now others are too.
The Guardian reports that “Big Labour donors returning to party under Keir Starmer”. And they seem to be happy about it.
It’s an odd choice of headline because, while a few big-money donors are apparently returning, you’d think the bigger news is the working class people leaving:
Big private donations dried up almost completely under Jeremy Corbyn, although the party’s huge membership and union support put it in a strong financial position without the need for funding from wealthy backers. However, Unite, Labour’s biggest union backer and a major supporter of Corbyn’s leadership, has issued warnings over future funding.
But who cares, right? Good riddance to them I say. The last thing a political party needs is grass-roots support, and nothing spoils a working-class movement like unionising.
Don’t even bother reading the internal report claiming Labour insiders threw the 2017 election.
The corruption is as sickening as it is obvious. Labour, so long a lost cause, almost became something worthy under Corbyn, and now it’s being torn apart in front of our eyes.
We have the disgusting spectacle of a notionally “progressive” paper praising the knighted leader of a “working people’s party” for winning over the big-money donors who moved to Switzerland to avoid paying UK taxes.
This really is clown world.
Don’t Panic: The Covid Cat Made a Full Recovery
This is technically from last week, but we missed it and it’s too good to ignore. “Owners warned not to kiss pets after first cat infected with coronavirus in UK”, the headline tells us.
By “after”, they mean three months after, because the cat was sick back in May. Which means owners have been kissing their pets willy-nilly for weeks with no cat plague in sight. The author doesn’t seem up to this simple piece of logic.
There’s almost too much to break down here. As a piece of comedic writing it borders on genius. From needlessly supplying us the cat’s gender, place of birth and age, to the throwaway reference to the fact the cat is fine, and that they found out by accident because the Glasgow Centre of Virology Studies is apparently devoting its money and time to randomly testing cat blood samples.
The scientist is a nice find too. It’s not many professionals who would have balls enough to put forward the hypothesis that “fluffier” cats might be more likely to catch the virus, but Prof Margaret Hosie is such a person:
maybe fluffier [cats] would be more ready to catch any sneezes or cough droplets.
I don’t know if “fluffy” is a scientific term, or what – if any – studies have been done correlating the amount of fluffiness with immune system response. Prof Mosie is obviously unclear on that too, hastening to add:
You can’t draw any significance from that.
No kidding.
The cherry on top is this photo of a very unimpressed cat:
It’s captioned “The cat (not pictured) and its owners have made a full recovery.”
So not only is the cat fine, but that’s not even the right cat. It’s just some stock image of some other cat.
Actually, by making sure the stock image matches the breed of the cat in the story whichever unpaid intern was tasked with putting “cat” into a google image search has shown an unusual level of initiative. A likely candidate for promotion in the future.
If this cat getting mildly sick and then getting better again has worried you in any way, don’t worry, the Graun is on the case – they’ve got a whole new article about it published yesterday:
We found the first cat in the UK with Covid-19 – but there’s no need to panic!
Phew.
BONUS…Something positive for once
TWiTG has never once agreed with anything in the Guardian…until now.
This article on the history of British made-for-TV movie The Woman in Black is absolutely on the money. It’s one of the best and scariest horror films ever made and deserves any and all praise.
I’m one of the few lucky enough to own it on DVD from its limited original release back in 2007, and it’s a life-ruiningly frightening watch.
Go find a copy and watch it now. (Or save it for Halloween as long as the world hasn’t ended by then).
* * *
All told, a busy week for The Guardian. And we didn’t even cover the specialist hugging instructions (wash your hands and “plan ahead”) or that NASA is “joining the social justice movement” by changing the name of the “Eskimo Nebula”.
Did we miss anything? Tell us about it in the comments below, and keep an eye out for articles that should go in the next issue.


offguardian--2020-08-09--Alexandr Lukashenko – a president with scruples

One day at the beginning of April this year I had an awakening .
It dawned on me that Russia had been leaned upon to change its policy regarding COVID-19 .
By that time the virus had spread through the UK like wildfire and was reaching its peak whereas in Russia there had been few infections and very few deaths .
It disturbed me that Russia Today ( RT ) , a favoured TV channel , had changed course .
It had always been a safe harbour in which to dock alternative viewpoints and seek solace from the lies and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
With the exception of events of 9/11 Russia Today seemed to offer a refreshing and often incisively critical insight into world affairs , throwing new light on the Skripal affair and the alleged chemical attacks in Syria , among other worthy reporting .
When the viral spread of SARS-COV-2 hit the west , forcing lockdowns and facial masks , RT was praising Russia ’ s efforts in controlling the spread and keeping deaths to a minimum .
By all measures it looked like Russia had bucked the trend and everything was under @ @ @ @ @ @ @ News readers , regular anchors and reporters were pushing a totally different message .
In essence the coronavirus rhetoric had gone east .
Accompanying footage suddenly contained repetitive images of people wearing masks and RT ’ s UK viewers were being advised to follow the guidelines on lockdown for our own safety and the safety of others .
I might just as well have been watching the BBC .
It made me question , and I guess many other RT viewers questioned it too .
Who had such control of the Russian media @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state-owned .
Was the Russian Bank ( RosBank ) behind the change ?
Rosbank is also 100 % state-owned so there would be little reason to have done an about turn over COVID-19 unless the Russian government had also had a change of policy .
I concluded that some ultra-powerful entity must have been behind the change , some entity with more clout than the state .
While Russian deaths started rising to US , UK elevations , its near neighbour Belarus was containing COVID-19 in the way I was expecting Russia to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was still doing .
The most likely reason for the Russian policy change has only come to light within the last week or two .
Tyler Durden posted an article in GreatGameIndia.com which showed that the Belarus president , Alexandr Lukashenko , had been offered a bribe to adopt the same measures Italy had adopted – that is lockdown , curfews , masks and other severe restrictions .
In an act of integrity rarely found in world leaders Lukashenko refused the bribe .
Africa , which has had a very low infection and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ several of its countries targeted by multi-billion cash-cows – WHO and Bill Gates – which pretty well amounts to Bill Gates since he is one of the biggest donors to WHO .
African countries which have been offered bribes include Tanzania , Burundi and Madagascar .
It can hardly be assumed they are alone .
Meanwhile in Belarus life has gone on as normal .
Football spectators have continued to go to matches and the season is in full swing with cup matches currently being played .
According to the United Nations Human @ @ @ @ @ @ @ employees to work from home .
Opposition outlets cast doubt on Lukashenko ’ s lack of action over lockdowns , curfews and tracing .
Towards the end of March Yuliana Volkova wrote an article designed to raise panic among Belarus residents in much the same way our media has succeeded .
She cited instances of generosity from the private sector for PPI equipment to hospitals , raised fears about Russians who had visited Thailand or Florence and were now in Belarus hospitals , stating that hospitals were full of patients who were only @ @ @ @ @ @ @ finished her alarmist piece by saying she hoped all this was just panic and psychosis .
And so it proved to be .
Today , August 9th , Belarus is holding its presidential elections .
Svetlana Tikhonovskaya is the main opposition candidate .
She recently commandeered a rally in Minsk of some 18,000 to 63,000 supporters .
But she is a substitute .
A month earlier the main opposition candidate had been banker , Viktor Babariko , the head of Belgazprombank , who was arrested in June .
Babariko , saw himself as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country needed a manager after Lukashenko ’ s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic .
He told Meduza that during the pandemic “ the government showed incredible neglect.
” Babariko is a great believer in loans and quite clearly would be willing to snap the hands off the World Bank with its COVID-19 bribes – and just as willing to pay the forfeits attached .
Babariko , who was often seen wearing a face-mask even though few of his supporters do , is being held on charges of embezzlement .
He has also been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and withdrawals from banks in Cyprus , London and Latvia .
He faces up to four years in prison on the embezzlement charges .
Investigations into his bank , a sister bank of the Russian Gazprom , have been ongoing since 2016 .
While he is ensconced Svetlana Tikhonovskaya stands in his place .
If elected she has agreed to release Babariko and call fresh elections .
On 28 July a contingent of Russian mercenaries were arrested in Belarus .
They are members of a private military company called “ Wagner ” and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ country is being investigated .
Lukashenko believes they may have been sent to destabilise the elections while Russia denies any involvement .
In a broadcast on the 4th of August Lukashenko again raised the issue of the 33 militants , though mostly his speech was about internal affairs .
He added that there was knowledge of another detachment having been sent to the south and that these militants would be caught too .
A spokeswoman for the Russian government , Maria Zakharova , said there was no proof that the Russians arrested were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for 26 years and is seeking a sixth term .
He recently told a national security meeting that he had himself suffered from COVID-19 without showing any symptoms .
“ 97 % of the population is asymptomatic ” he said , adding that the rest of the world was suffering from what he called “ coronapsychosis ” .
Whatever happens in the election on today if there is a change in leadership it will mean another World Bank controlled state , with restricted visits to the beaches – although landlocked they do have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and all the other constraints including a lack of leisure and sports activities , indeed everything concomitant with a locked-down state !
The choice is the people ’ s .
By this time tomorrow , we will know just how wise they are .

John Goss
One day at the beginning of April this year I had an awakening. It dawned on me that Russia had been leaned upon to change its policy regarding COVID-19. By that time the virus had spread through the UK like wildfire and was reaching its peak whereas in Russia there had been few infections and very few deaths.
It disturbed me that Russia Today (RT), a favoured TV channel, had changed course. It had always been a safe harbour in which to dock alternative viewpoints and seek solace from the lies and dogma of our own major news broadcasters. With the exception of events of 9/11 Russia Today seemed to offer a refreshing and often incisively critical insight into world affairs, throwing new light on the Skripal affair and the alleged chemical attacks in Syria, among other worthy reporting.
When the viral spread of SARS-COV-2 hit the west, forcing lockdowns and facial masks, RT was praising Russia’s efforts in controlling the spread and keeping deaths to a minimum. By all measures it looked like Russia had bucked the trend and everything was under control. Suddenly all that changed. News readers, regular anchors and reporters were pushing a totally different message. In essence the coronavirus rhetoric had gone east. Accompanying footage suddenly contained repetitive images of people wearing masks and RT’s UK viewers were being advised to follow the guidelines on lockdown for our own safety and the safety of others. I might just as well have been watching the BBC.
It made me question, and I guess many other RT viewers questioned it too. Who had such control of the Russian media? After all RT is 100% state-owned. Was the Russian Bank (RosBank) behind the change? Rosbank is also 100% state-owned so there would be little reason to have done an about turn over COVID-19 unless the Russian government had also had a change of policy. I concluded that some ultra-powerful entity must have been behind the change, some entity with more clout than the state.
While Russian deaths started rising to US, UK elevations, its near neighbour Belarus was containing COVID-19 in the way I was expecting Russia to have done, the way South Korea was still doing. The most likely reason for the Russian policy change has only come to light within the last week or two. Tyler Durden posted an article in GreatGameIndia.com which showed that the Belarus president, Alexandr Lukashenko, had been offered a bribe to adopt the same measures Italy had adopted – that is lockdown, curfews, masks and other severe restrictions.
In an act of integrity rarely found in world leaders Lukashenko refused the bribe. Africa, which has had a very low infection and death-rate from COVID-19, has likewise had several of its countries targeted by multi-billion cash-cows – WHO and Bill Gates – which pretty well amounts to Bill Gates since he is one of the biggest donors to WHO. African countries which have been offered bribes include Tanzania, Burundi and Madagascar. It can hardly be assumed they are alone.
Meanwhile in Belarus life has gone on as normal. Football spectators have continued to go to matches and the season is in full swing with cup matches currently being played. According to the United Nations Human Rights Council a few companies have encouraged employees to work from home. Opposition outlets cast doubt on Lukashenko’s lack of action over lockdowns, curfews and tracing. Towards the end of March Yuliana Volkova wrote an article designed to raise panic among Belarus residents in much the same way our media has succeeded.
She cited instances of generosity from the private sector for PPI equipment to hospitals, raised fears about Russians who had visited Thailand or Florence and were now in Belarus hospitals, stating that hospitals were full of patients who were only ever diagnosed as having pneumonia. She finished her alarmist piece by saying she hoped all this was just panic and psychosis. And so it proved to be.
Today, August 9th, Belarus is holding its presidential elections. Svetlana Tikhonovskaya is the main opposition candidate. She recently commandeered a rally in Minsk of some 18,000 to 63,000 supporters. But she is a substitute. A month earlier the main opposition candidate had been banker, Viktor Babariko, the head of Belgazprombank, who was arrested in June.
Babariko, saw himself as an ideal candidate since he believed the country needed a manager after Lukashenko’s mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. He told Meduza that during the pandemic “the government showed incredible neglect.” Babariko is a great believer in loans and quite clearly would be willing to snap the hands off the World Bank with its COVID-19 bribes – and just as willing to pay the forfeits attached.
Babariko, who was often seen wearing a face-mask even though few of his supporters do, is being held on charges of embezzlement. He has also been accused of engaging in official authority abuse and withdrawals from banks in Cyprus, London and Latvia. He faces up to four years in prison on the embezzlement charges. Investigations into his bank, a sister bank of the Russian Gazprom, have been ongoing since 2016. While he is ensconced Svetlana Tikhonovskaya stands in his place. If elected she has agreed to release Babariko and call fresh elections.
On 28 July a contingent of Russian mercenaries were arrested in Belarus. They are members of a private military company called “Wagner” and the purpose of their presence in the country is being investigated. Lukashenko believes they may have been sent to destabilise the elections while Russia denies any involvement.
In a broadcast on the 4th of August Lukashenko again raised the issue of the 33 militants, though mostly his speech was about internal affairs. He added that there was knowledge of another detachment having been sent to the south and that these militants would be caught too. A spokeswoman for the Russian government, Maria Zakharova, said there was no proof that the Russians arrested were guilty.
Lukashenko has been in power for 26 years and is seeking a sixth term. He recently told a national security meeting that he had himself suffered from COVID-19 without showing any symptoms. “97% of the population is asymptomatic” he said, adding that the rest of the world was suffering from what he called “coronapsychosis”.
Whatever happens in the election on today if there is a change in leadership it will mean another World Bank controlled state, with restricted visits to the beaches – although landlocked they do have beaches – social distancing, face masks and all the other constraints including a lack of leisure and sports activities, indeed everything concomitant with a locked-down state! The choice is the people’s.
By this time tomorrow, we will know just how wise they are.


offguardian--2020-08-10--Invasion of the New Normals

Invasion of the New Normals

They ’ re here !
No , not the pod people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers .
We ’ re not being colonized by giant alien fruit .
I ’ m afraid it is a little more serious than that .
People ’ s minds are being taken over by a much more destructive and less otherworldly force … a force that transforms them overnight into aggressively paranoid , order-following , propaganda-parroting totalitarians .
You know the people I ’ m talking about .
Some of them are probably your friends and family , people you have known for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ completely rational , but who are now convinced that we need to radically alter the fabric of human society to protect ourselves from a virus that causes mild to moderate flu-like symptoms ( or absolutely no symptoms at all ) in over 95 % of those infected , and that over 99.6 % survive , which , it goes without saying , is totally insane .
I ’ ve been calling them “ corona-totalitarians , ” but I ’ m going to call them the “ New Normals ” from now on , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ideology they are systematically spreading .
At this point , I think it is important to do that , because , clearly , their ideological program has nothing to do with any actual virus , or any other actual public health threat .
As is glaringly obvious to anyone whose mind has not been taken over yet , the “ apocalyptic coronavirus pandemic ” was always just a Trojan horse , a means of introducing the “ New Normal , ” which they ’ ve been doing since the very beginning .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it reached full intensity in early April .
Suddenly , references to the “ New Normal ” were everywhere , not only in the leading corporate media ( e.g.
, CNN , NPR , CNBC , The New York Times , The Guardian , The Atlantic , Forbes , et al . )
, the IMF and the World Bank Group , the WEF , UN , WHO , CDC ( and the list goes on ) , but also on the blogs of athletic organizations , global management consulting firms , charter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The slogan has been relentlessly repeated ( in a textbook totalitarian “ big lie ” fashion ) for going on the past six months .
We have heard it repeated so many times that many of us have forgotten how insane it is , the idea that the fundamental structure of society needs to be drastically and irrevocably altered on account of a virus that poses no threat to the vast majority of the human species .
And , make no mistake , that is exactly what the “ New Normal ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Normalism ” is a classic totalitarian movement ( albeit with a pathological twist ) , and it is the goal of every totalitarian movement to radically , utterly transform society , to remake the world in its monstrous image .
That is what totalitarianism is , this desire to establish complete control over everything and everyone , every thought , emotion , and human interaction .
The character of its ideology changes ( i.e.
, Nazism , Stalinism , Maoism , etc . )
, but this desire for complete control over people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ itself , is the essence of totalitarianism … and what has taken over the minds of the New Normals .
In the New Normal society they want to establish , as in every totalitarian society , fear and conformity will be pervasive .
Their ideology is a pathologized ideology ( as opposed to , say , the racialized ideology of the Nazis ) , so its symbology will be pathological .
Fear of disease , infection , and death , and obsessive attention to matters of health will dominate every aspect of life @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be ubiquitous and constant .
Everyone will be forced to wear medical masks to maintain a constant level of fear and an omnipresent atmosphere of sickness and death , as if the world were one big infectious disease ward .
Everyone will wear these masks at all times , at work , at home , in their cars , everywhere .
Anyone who fails or refuses to do so will be deemed “ a threat to public health , ” and beaten and arrested by the police or the military , or swarmed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cities , regions , and entire countries will be subjected to random police-state lockdowns , which will be justified by the threat of “ infection.
” People will be confined to their homes for up to 23-hours a day , and allowed out only for “ essential reasons.
” Police and soldiers will patrol the streets , stopping people , checking their papers , and beating and arresting anyone out in public without the proper documents , or walking or standing too close to other people , like they are doing in Melbourne @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of “ infection ” will be used to justify increasingly insane and authoritarian edicts , compulsory demonstration-of-fealty rituals , and eventually the elimination of all forms of dissent .
Just as the Nazis believed they were waging a war against the “ subhuman races , ” the New Normals will be waging a war on “ disease , ” and on anyone who “ endangers the public health ” by challenging their ideological narrative .
Like every other totalitarian movement , in the end , they will do whatever is necessary to purify @ @ @ @ @ @ @ i.e.
, anyone who questions or disagrees with them , or who refuses to obey their every command ) .
They are already aggressively censoring the Internet and banning their opponents ’ political protests , and political leaders and the corporate media are systematically stigmatizing those of us who dare to challenge their official narrative as “ extremists , ” “ Nazis , ” “ conspiracy theorists , ” “ covidiots , ” “ coronavirus deniers , ” “ anti-vaxxers , ” and “ esoteric ” freaks .
One German official even went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be deported … presumably on trains to somewhere in the East .
Despite this increasing totalitarianization and pathologization of virtually everything , the New Normals will carry on with their lives as if everything were … well , completely normal .
They will go out to restaurants and the movies in their masks .
They will work , eat , and sleep in their masks .
Families will go on holiday in their masks , or in their “ Personal Protective Upper-Body Bubble-Wear.
” They will arrive at the airport eight hours early @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and then follow the arrows on the floor to the “ health officials ” in the hazmat suits , who will take their temperature through their foreheads and shove ten-inch swabs into their sinus cavities .
Parents who wish to forego this experience will have the option to preventatively vaccinate themselves and their children with the latest experimental vaccine ( after signing a liability waiver , of course ) within a week or so before their flights , and then present the officials with proof of vaccination ( and of their compliance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) on their digital Identity and Public Health Passports , or subdermal biometric chips .
Children , as always , will suffer the worst of it .
They will be terrorized and confused from the moment they are born , by their parents , their teachers , and by the society at large .
They will be subjected to ideological conditioning and paranoid behavioral modification at every stage of their socialization … with fanciful reusable corporate plague masks branded with loveable cartoon characters , paranoia-inducing picture books for toddlers , and paranoid “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ forms of psychological torture .
This conditioning ( or torture ) will take place at home , as there will be no more schools , or rather , no public schools .
The children of the wealthy will attend private schools , where they can be cost-effectively “ socially-distanced.
” Working class children will sit at home , alone , staring into screens , wearing their masks , their hyperactivity and anxiety disorders stabilized with anti-depressant medications .
And so on … I think you get the picture .
I hope so , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heart to go on .
I pray this glimpse into the New Normal future has terrified and angered you enough to rise up against it before it is too late .
This isn ’ t a joke , folks .
The New Normals are serious .
If you can not see where their movement is headed , you do not understand totalitarianism .
Once it starts , and reaches this stage , it does not stop , not without a fight .
It continues to its logical conclusion .
The way that usually @ @ @ @ @ @ @ isn ’ t happening , it can ’ t be happening , not to us .
They tell themselves this as the totalitarian program is implemented , step by step , one seemingly harmless step at a time .
They conform , because , at first , the stakes aren ’ t so high , and their conformity leads to more conformity , and the next thing they know they ’ re telling their grandchildren that they had no idea where the trains were going .
If you have made it through to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mind hasn ’ t been taken over yet … the New Normals clicked off around paragraph 2 .
What that means is that it is your responsibility to speak up , and to do whatever else you can , to stop the New Normal future from becoming a reality .
You will not be rewarded for it .
You will be ridiculed and castigated for it .
Your New Normal friends will hate you for it .
Your New Normal family will forsake you for it .
The New Normal police might arrest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ responsibility to do it anyway … as , of course , it is also mine .
CJ Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright , novelist and political satirist based in Berlin .
His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing , Inc. His dystopian novel , Zone 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy , Swaine & Cormorant .
Volume I of his Consent Factory Essays is published by Consent Factory Publishing , a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amalgamated Content , Inc .
He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .

CJ Hopkins
They’re here! No, not the pod people from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. We’re not being colonized by giant alien fruit. I’m afraid it is a little more serious than that. People’s minds are being taken over by a much more destructive and less otherworldly force … a force that transforms them overnight into aggressively paranoid, order-following, propaganda-parroting totalitarians.
You know the people I’m talking about. Some of them are probably your friends and family, people you have known for years, and who had always seemed completely rational, but who are now convinced that we need to radically alter the fabric of human society to protect ourselves from a virus that causes mild to moderate flu-like symptoms (or absolutely no symptoms at all) in over 95% of those infected, and that over 99.6% survive, which, it goes without saying, is totally insane.
I’ve been calling them “corona-totalitarians,” but I’m going to call them the “New Normals” from now on, as that more accurately evokes the pathologized-totalitarian ideology they are systematically spreading. At this point, I think it is important to do that, because, clearly, their ideological program has nothing to do with any actual virus, or any other actual public health threat.
As is glaringly obvious to anyone whose mind has not been taken over yet, the “apocalyptic coronavirus pandemic” was always just a Trojan horse, a means of introducing the “New Normal,” which they’ve been doing since the very beginning.
The official propaganda started in March, and it reached full intensity in early April. Suddenly, references to the “New Normal” were everywhere, not only in the leading corporate media (e.g., CNN, NPR, CNBC, The New York Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, Forbes, et al.), the IMF and the World Bank Group, the WEF, UN, WHO, CDC (and the list goes on), but also on the blogs of athletic organizations, global management consulting firms, charter school websites, and random YouTube videos.
The slogan has been relentlessly repeated (in a textbook totalitarian “big lie” fashion) for going on the past six months. We have heard it repeated so many times that many of us have forgotten how insane it is, the idea that the fundamental structure of society needs to be drastically and irrevocably altered on account of a virus that poses no threat to the vast majority of the human species.
And, make no mistake, that is exactly what the “New Normal” movement intends to do. “New Normalism” is a classic totalitarian movement (albeit with a pathological twist), and it is the goal of every totalitarian movement to radically, utterly transform society, to remake the world in its monstrous image.
That is what totalitarianism is, this desire to establish complete control over everything and everyone, every thought, emotion, and human interaction. The character of its ideology changes (i.e., Nazism, Stalinism, Maoism, etc.), but this desire for complete control over people, over society, and ultimately life itself, is the essence of totalitarianism … and what has taken over the minds of the New Normals.
In the New Normal society they want to establish, as in every totalitarian society, fear and conformity will be pervasive. Their ideology is a pathologized ideology (as opposed to, say, the racialized ideology of the Nazis), so its symbology will be pathological. Fear of disease, infection, and death, and obsessive attention to matters of health will dominate every aspect of life. Paranoid propaganda and ideological conditioning will be ubiquitous and constant.
Everyone will be forced to wear medical masks to maintain a constant level of fear and an omnipresent atmosphere of sickness and death, as if the world were one big infectious disease ward. Everyone will wear these masks at all times, at work, at home, in their cars, everywhere. Anyone who fails or refuses to do so will be deemed “a threat to public health,” and beaten and arrested by the police or the military, or swarmed by mobs of New Normal vigilantes.
Cities, regions, and entire countries will be subjected to random police-state lockdowns, which will be justified by the threat of “infection.” People will be confined to their homes for up to 23-hours a day, and allowed out only for “essential reasons.” Police and soldiers will patrol the streets, stopping people, checking their papers, and beating and arresting anyone out in public without the proper documents, or walking or standing too close to other people, like they are doing in Melbourne, Australia, currently.
The threat of “infection” will be used to justify increasingly insane and authoritarian edicts, compulsory demonstration-of-fealty rituals, and eventually the elimination of all forms of dissent. Just as the Nazis believed they were waging a war against the “subhuman races,” the New Normals will be waging a war on “disease,” and on anyone who “endangers the public health” by challenging their ideological narrative.
Like every other totalitarian movement, in the end, they will do whatever is necessary to purify society of “degenerate influences” (i.e., anyone who questions or disagrees with them, or who refuses to obey their every command).
They are already aggressively censoring the Internet and banning their opponents’ political protests, and political leaders and the corporate media are systematically stigmatizing those of us who dare to challenge their official narrative as “extremists,” “Nazis,” “conspiracy theorists,” “covidiots,” “coronavirus deniers,” “anti-vaxxers,” and “esoteric” freaks. One German official even went so far as to demand that dissidents be deported … presumably on trains to somewhere in the East.
Despite this increasing totalitarianization and pathologization of virtually everything, the New Normals will carry on with their lives as if everything were … well, completely normal. They will go out to restaurants and the movies in their masks. They will work, eat, and sleep in their masks. Families will go on holiday in their masks, or in their “Personal Protective Upper-Body Bubble-Wear.”
They will arrive at the airport eight hours early, stand in their little color-coded boxes, and then follow the arrows on the floor to the “health officials” in the hazmat suits, who will take their temperature through their foreheads and shove ten-inch swabs into their sinus cavities. Parents who wish to forego this experience will have the option to preventatively vaccinate themselves and their children with the latest experimental vaccine (after signing a liability waiver, of course) within a week or so before their flights, and then present the officials with proof of vaccination (and of their compliance with various other “health guidelines”) on their digital Identity and Public Health Passports, or subdermal biometric chips.
Children, as always, will suffer the worst of it. They will be terrorized and confused from the moment they are born, by their parents, their teachers, and by the society at large. They will be subjected to ideological conditioning and paranoid behavioral modification at every stage of their socialization … with fanciful reusable corporate plague masks branded with loveable cartoon characters, paranoia-inducing picture books for toddlers, and paranoid “social distancing” rituals, among other forms of psychological torture.
This conditioning (or torture) will take place at home, as there will be no more schools, or rather, no public schools. The children of the wealthy will attend private schools, where they can be cost-effectively “socially-distanced.” Working class children will sit at home, alone, staring into screens, wearing their masks, their hyperactivity and anxiety disorders stabilized with anti-depressant medications.
And so on … I think you get the picture. I hope so, because I don’t have the heart to go on.
I pray this glimpse into the New Normal future has terrified and angered you enough to rise up against it before it is too late. This isn’t a joke, folks. The New Normals are serious. If you cannot see where their movement is headed, you do not understand totalitarianism. Once it starts, and reaches this stage, it does not stop, not without a fight. It continues to its logical conclusion.
The way that usually happens is, people tell themselves it isn’t happening, it can’t be happening, not to us. They tell themselves this as the totalitarian program is implemented, step by step, one seemingly harmless step at a time. They conform, because, at first, the stakes aren’t so high, and their conformity leads to more conformity, and the next thing they know they’re telling their grandchildren that they had no idea where the trains were going.
If you have made it through to the end of this essay, your mind hasn’t been taken over yet … the New Normals clicked off around paragraph 2.
What that means is that it is your responsibility to speak up, and to do whatever else you can, to stop the New Normal future from becoming a reality. You will not be rewarded for it. You will be ridiculed and castigated for it. Your New Normal friends will hate you for it. Your New Normal family will forsake you for it. The New Normal police might arrest you for it. It is your responsibility to do it anyway … as, of course, it is also mine.
CJ Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and political satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing and Broadway Play Publishing, Inc. His dystopian novel, Zone 23, is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. Volume I of his Consent Factory Essays is published by Consent Factory Publishing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Amalgamated Content, Inc. He can be reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org.


offguardian--2020-08-11--YouTube shuts down a Russian “Fox”

YouTube shuts down a Russian “Fox”

It has been worrying to read about Off-Guardian ’ s recent difficulties with it ’ s Facebook news feed , where posts have been blocked and denied propagation .
Another very similar situation has been brought to my attention that reinforces the view that the US deep state is behind the steering wheel at Google , Facebook , YouTube and likely every other western social media platform as well .
Tsargrad TV is a Russian channel owned by Konstantin Malofeev , one of Putin ’ s biggest supporters amongst Russia ’ s wealthiest entrepreneurs .
A renowned Fox News producer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prowess with Tsargrad and the channel quickly became something of an Internet phenomenon , as has AJ+ , Al Jazeera ’ s YouTube channel .
Like AJ+ it was following a YouTube-centric ( rather than a conventional TV ) model .
Besides becoming known for the best production values amongst Russian broadcasters , it unashamedly supports Vladimir Putin , Donald Trump and the Donetsk People ’ s Republic .
The Google subsidiary blocked Tsargrad ’ s YouTube account on July 28th over “ a violation of the law on sanctions and trade rules @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Konstantin Malofeev , was under EU sanctions for his alleged involvement in the civil war in Donbass ( on the pro-Russian side that is supported by the overwhelming majority of the people of Donbass ) .
Naturally , Western support for the other side , the Ukrainian far-right , is considered “ kosher ” .
For some reason it enjoys a “ license to kill ” and those , like German-based Sergey Loznitsa , who produce Goebbelsian hate films about the people of Donbass , may fear no such sanctions from their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ under EU sanctions since 2014 , so why was Tsargrad ’ s YouTube account suddenly struck off six years later ?
The move reveals more about US internal politics than about the US-Russia feud .
Tsargrad must have hit a nerve within the US “ deep state ” mafia when they interviewed Alexander Korobko ( above ) , the co-author of Vladimir Putin ’ s most thorough biography ( authored with Chris Hutchins ) .
A native of Donetsk and the author of “ New York to Donetsk and back ” , approached @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to engage in a no-nonsense conversation about his native Donbass .
Alexander had produced a documentary about Joe Biden ’ s involvement and direct role in the war with Donbass and wanted to share with Trump what he had learnt during his investigation .
Alexander Korobko and his Russian Hour production company had uncovered a major scandal , which could potentially bring Biden to a Senate Committee hearing similar to Watergate and bring his presidential dreams down in a New York minute .
Tsargrad was planning to keep covering the story and Korobko @ @ @ @ @ @ @ R ” , about the events in Donbass .
Alexander sent the letter to Trump flagging up his findings and it was officially received by the White House .
It was probably this letter that was the last straw for the US deep state as it must have then ordered Google to strike out Tsargrad ’ s YT channel “ out of the blue ” … Alexander Korobko described his plans to show his “ Alpha R ” film in the US during the US presidential election in November during a TV interview @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about to launch an English-language micro-channel dedicated to that endeavour and to Donbass in general .
With over a million subscribers in Russia and with the prospect of becoming an influential foreign player in the US media realm , following the example of Qatar ’ s AJ+ , Tsargrad became too much to handle for YouTube , that “ beacon of freedom ” that is filled with disturbing channels and videos under the pretext of giving a voice to the voiceless , as long as those voices are weak , strange and not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Truth ” .
Tsargrad ’ s YT channel just didn ’ t fit that bill .
Alexander Korobko , as the guest of the TV show to which the closure is “ owed ” , commented : Korobko says that the idea of YouTube first appeared in a Russian sci-fi novel Battle in the Ether by Alexander Belyaev published back in 1928 ( ! )
, in which he described “ the central film archive operating automatically ” : Belyaev predicted ( and described ) the Internet with YouTube as part of it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use our modern tech lingo , obviously .
I am sure the YT founders , along with Google ’ s Moscow born Sergey Brin , were inspired by such Russian visionaries as Alexander Belyaev and studied their predictions .
A pity they don ’ t fully share their values such as our universal empathy .
[ … ] The Tube has become too narrow and hollow , we need a video platform which is truly open yet not ochlocratic [ … ] for instance , those who make comments should be identifiable as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out the worst in people , poisons and dumbs down any conversation and promotes frivolity not freedom .
YouTube has become the “ Kunstkamera ” of the world ; a freak show , where the downright sick , ugly , bizarre and horrible is thrown into a mix with the curious and amusing , a place where knowledge is far outweighed by half-knowledge and fakery .
We all agree that there ’ s a ton of good stuff there too , but it ’ s not produced by YT , the latter uses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ income and the ability to make a living unless they buy into a ridiculous “ numbers ” game and a clickbait “ culture ” .
It doesn ’ t offer content creators a real pay-per-view model or other sophisticated tools such as “ pay to continue watching ” etc .
The world needs a YouView platform where “ you ” will be treated like a person , not a number.
” YouTube seems to have had enough of Russia .
Well , it should be afraid that Russia , a huge audience , @ @ @ @ @ @

Rhys Jones
It has been worrying to read about Off-Guardian’s recent difficulties with it’s Facebook news feed, where posts have been blocked and denied propagation. Another very similar situation has been brought to my attention that reinforces the view that the US deep state is behind the steering wheel at Google, Facebook, YouTube and likely every other western social media platform as well.
Tsargrad TV is a Russian channel owned by Konstantin Malofeev, one of Putin’s biggest supporters amongst Russia’s wealthiest entrepreneurs. A renowned Fox News producer Jack Hanick shared Fox’s production prowess with Tsargrad and the channel quickly became something of an Internet phenomenon, as has AJ+, Al Jazeera’s YouTube channel.
Like AJ+ it was following a YouTube-centric (rather than a conventional TV) model. Besides becoming known for the best production values amongst Russian broadcasters, it unashamedly supports Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and the Donetsk People’s Republic.
The Google subsidiary blocked Tsargrad’s YouTube account on July 28th over “a violation of the law on sanctions and trade rules”. The channel’s owner, Konstantin Malofeev, was under EU sanctions for his alleged involvement in the civil war in Donbass (on the pro-Russian side that is supported by the overwhelming majority of the people of Donbass).
Naturally, Western support for the other side, the Ukrainian far-right, is considered “kosher”. For some reason it enjoys a “license to kill” and those, like German-based Sergey Loznitsa, who produce Goebbelsian hate films about the people of Donbass, may fear no such sanctions from their hypocritical hosts.
Konstantin Malofeev has been under EU sanctions since 2014, so why was Tsargrad’s YouTube account suddenly struck off six years later? The move reveals more about US internal politics than about the US-Russia feud. Tsargrad must have hit a nerve within the US “deep state” mafia when they interviewed Alexander Korobko (above), the co-author of Vladimir Putin’s most thorough biography (authored with Chris Hutchins).
A native of Donetsk and the author of “New York to Donetsk and back”, approached Donald Trump by letter with an offer to engage in a no-nonsense conversation about his native Donbass. Alexander had produced a documentary about Joe Biden’s involvement and direct role in the war with Donbass and wanted to share with Trump what he had learnt during his investigation.
Alexander Korobko and his Russian Hour production company had uncovered a major scandal, which could potentially bring Biden to a Senate Committee hearing similar to Watergate and bring his presidential dreams down in a New York minute.
Tsargrad was planning to keep covering the story and Korobko’s new feature film “Alpha R”, about the events in Donbass. Alexander sent the letter to Trump flagging up his findings and it was officially received by the White House. It was probably this letter that was the last straw for the US deep state as it must have then ordered Google to strike out Tsargrad’s YT channel “out of the blue”…
Alexander Korobko described his plans to show his “Alpha R” film in the US during the US presidential election in November during a TV interview.
At the same time Tsargrad was about to launch an English-language micro-channel dedicated to that endeavour and to Donbass in general.
With over a million subscribers in Russia and with the prospect of becoming an influential foreign player in the US media realm, following the example of Qatar’s AJ+, Tsargrad became too much to handle for YouTube, that “beacon of freedom” that is filled with disturbing channels and videos under the pretext of giving a voice to the voiceless, as long as those voices are weak, strange and not threatening to the Western “Ministry of Truth”. Tsargrad’s YT channel just didn’t fit that bill.
Alexander Korobko, as the guest of the TV show to which the closure is “owed”, commented:
“Well, I totally agree with the President’s spokesperson (Dmitry Peskov) who said, “There is a solution – that is not to depend on Western platforms” […] Any Western platform is a private platform, which can throw you out along with your account at any moment […] We shall develop our own alternative to YouTube […] like China’s Youku, but geared to the entire world.
Korobko says that the idea of YouTube first appeared in a Russian sci-fi novel Battle in the Ether by Alexander Belyaev published back in 1928(!), in which he described “the central film archive operating automatically”:
Belyaev predicted (and described) the Internet with YouTube as part of it, albeit the writer didn’t use our modern tech lingo, obviously. I am sure the YT founders, along with Google’s Moscow born Sergey Brin, were inspired by such Russian visionaries as Alexander Belyaev and studied their predictions. A pity they don’t fully share their values such as our universal empathy. […] The Tube has become too narrow and hollow, we need a video platform which is truly open yet not ochlocratic […] for instance, those who make comments should be identifiable as YouTube comments’ “anonymity” brings out the worst in people, poisons and dumbs down any conversation and promotes frivolity not freedom. YouTube has become the “Kunstkamera” of the world; a freak show, where the downright sick, ugly, bizarre and horrible is thrown into a mix with the curious and amusing, a place where knowledge is far outweighed by half-knowledge and fakery. We all agree that there’s a ton of good stuff there too, but it’s not produced by YT, the latter uses and abuses creators and robs them of income and the ability to make a living unless they buy into a ridiculous “numbers” game and a clickbait “culture”. It doesn’t offer content creators a real pay-per-view model or other sophisticated tools such as “pay to continue watching” etc. The world needs a YouView platform where “you” will be treated like a person, not a number.”
YouTube seems to have had enough of Russia. Well, it should be afraid that Russia, a huge audience, has had enough with YouTube.