Where To Find Reporting And Analysis To Offset Propaganda On Ukraine

Twitter quickly removed two tweets of mine last week calling attention to some useful sources of truthful analysis of the potentially nuclear confrontation between U.S./NATO proxy Ukraine and the Russian Federation. Probably someone reported my tweets, but we'll never know because social media censorship is mostly opaque. 

Of course I kept trying. Here's the tweet:

Where I’m looking for truthful, useful information & analysis on Ukraine:
Matt Taibbi@mtaibbi
Margaret Kimberley@freedomrideblog
Caitlin Johnstone@caitoz
Black Alliance for Peace@Blacks4Peace
John Pilger@johnpilger
Pepe Escobar@RealPepeEscobar

— Lisa Savage (@NaturalGuard) February 23, 2022

Reposting some of the more sane, though alarming, observations on the war in Ukraine this week:

From Peter Vanhoutte: A friend of mine published a few days a go a map of Eastern Europe with all NATO-bases on it on facebook. This was immediately removed by a so-called fact checker. This is a frightening development. We are not allowed to know anymore the military builld-up on the Western side, only the Russian military is public. As a former journalist, I wonder why we are not allowed to see the two sides of the current problem and critically analyze them.  Even for a mediated solution, a balanced approach to and understanding of both sides is necessary. And in the end, the creation of a neutral zone between east and west will certainly help to lower the tensions. 

From John Pilger: Western Democracies Have Mutated into Propagandists for War and Conflict

Vladimir Putin refers to the “genocide” in the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine. Following the coup in Ukraine in 2014—orchestrated by Barack Obama’s “point person” in Kyiv, Victoria Nuland—the coup regime, infested with neo-Nazis, launched a campaign of terror against Russian-speaking Donbas, which accounts for a third of Ukraine’s population.

Overseen by CIA director John Brennan in Kyiv, “special security units” coordinated savage attacks on the people of Donbas, who opposed the coup. Video and eyewitness reports show bussed fascist thugs burning the trade union headquarters in the city of Odessa, killing 41 people trapped inside. The police are standing by. Obama congratulated the “duly elected” coup regime for its “remarkable restraint.”

From Bruce Gagnon: 

Who funded the RAND Corp study on regime change in Russia?

 

 

 

The infamous RAND Corporation has created a study calling for the break-up of Russia. The plan is now being implemented by the US-UK-NATO. See the study here.

The pie chart above (click on it for a better view) details where RAND gets its funding. Should be no surprise to see that the vast majority of the money comes from the Department of Defense, US Army, Air Force, Homeland Security and other government agencies.

It is my opinion, based on these and other obvious facts, that the current international effort to militarily encircle Russia and take them down - is being envisioned and organized by the US war machine.

In addition is the unrelenting corporate media brainwashing of the American and European people to support this regime change effort now underway. 

Since 2007 Russia has been pleading with US-UK-NATO to agree to a negotiated security program for all of Europe that would end NATO expansion and would return to serious negotiations to ban weapons in space, cyber war, and return to nuclear weapons reduction talks. The US has refused all of these offers for stability.

 

Moscow understands what the western corporate-run governments intend - regime change and the breaking up of Russia into smaller nations that would then give resource extraction companies access to the vast resources along the Arctic Sea zone.

The US use of Ukraine as a tool to destabilize Russia is spelled out in the Rand study where they say:

Providing lethal aid to Ukraine would exploit Russia’s greatest point of external vulnerability....Undermining Russia’s image abroad would focus on diminishing Russian standing and influence, thus undercutting regime claims of restoring Russia to its former glory. Further sanctions, the removal of Russia from non-UN international forums, and boycotting such events as the World Cup could be implemented by Western states and would damage Russian prestige.

NATO endless war council

 

So the evidence is abundant if one is serious about cutting through the media demonization and the western military encirclement of Russia. But the willingness to seek the truth and to stand against the wave of American 'exceptionalist' propaganda is more than most are prepared to face.

Sadly far to many in the US (even in the progressive movement) know little to nothing about the full story.  And even more sadly, many don't appear to be that interested in finding the truth. 

Let's hope that changes before it is too late.

Bruce

What The Corporate Press Fails To Tell Us About Ukraine

Reposting my friend Bruce Gagnon's excellent update which contains some images and information that you will not see in the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, CNN, and the rest of the corporate press. These media outlets lied us into war in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan. Hot on the heels of four years of fabricating the Russiagate story, would they lie us into war with Russia? You bet they would.

Updating Ukraine-Russia-US-UK war planning

February 5 protests across the U.S. a success     Here is a brief update on the lastest information:   Increasingly more and more people and peace groups in the U.S. are speaking out to try to stop Washington from pushing Ukraine-Russia (and maybe all of us) into WW III. On February 5 protests like the one just above (in Mid-coast Maine) were held in more than 75 communities across the nation.   The photo at the very top of the email reveals (never reported in the corporate media) that 150,000 Ukrainian troops (trained, armed and directed by US-UK-NATO) are at the 'line of contact' near the Russian-ethnic region (inside Ukraine) called the Donbass (red on the map). Ukraine is repeatedly shelling the Donbass region trying to draw Russia into a full-blown war.   The photos below are Ukrainian protests in front of the US Embassy in the capital city of Kiev. They reveal that there are many inside Ukraine that do not see the US-UK-NATO military operations since the 2014 U.S. orchestrated coup d'état as a positive.   Ukraine's President Zelensky has just blocked and banned the 6th anti-Zelensky TV channel in the last 12 months. So much for democracy from the Nazi-backed regime in Kiev.   Inside Russia there are growing fears that the US-UK-NATO will implement a tried-and-true 'false flag' event that could then be blamed on Moscow. Don't forget that the US has used false flags in the past (like the Gulf of Tonkin to ramp up Vietnam war).   Russia continues to say that it has no intention of invading Ukraine. But if Donbass or Crimea are hit by the Ukrainian army then there would likely be a response.   In recent days the U.S. forced the Slovakian government to allow the Pentagon to set up a base inside that country despite major protests. So clearly the U.S. is using this current Ukraine situation to expand its military operations inside Eastern Europe - the exact opposite of what Russia has demanded. It's a spit in Russia's face.   An international call has gone out for peace activists to use the slogan 'Disband NATO' as much as possible. Washington (and allies) promised then President Gorbachev, at the time of the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, that the alliance would not expand 'one inch' toward Russia. Clinton broke the promise with his 'NATO Enhancement' and today NATO in on the Russian borders. How is Moscow to react?

Protests outside the U.S. embassy in Kiev   The banners in Kiev speak for themselves.   Ukrainian activists demand the U.S. return home   You'd never know that there we anti-American protests at the U.S. embassy in Kiev by listening to western corporate-run media. All we get is the opposite. We daily hear that Ukraine is united and ready to defend themselves against the Russian bear.   At the same time we hear that NATO is united - rarely a word about Croatia, Hungary, France, Germany and other NATO members urging peace and rejecting getting involved in any war.

What About Putin?

Recently I noted that an interesting aspect of opposing war with Russia in Europe as compared with opposing U.S.-supported wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, or Yemen is hearing from numerous liberal Democrats that are extremely in favor of this war and irate that I am not.

Yesterday I came under attack by two liberal Democrat-types (both of whom happen to be older female academics) because I am insufficiently moved by warmongering propaganda offered up on NPR, CNN, MSNBC, and other corporate media.

This is a common theme of my days.

In the false binary where if Republicans are bad then Democrats must be good because there are always only two choices, if I'm against NATO I must therefore be in favor of Putin. As the avatar of Catherine the Great's imperial ambitions in one case (what the what?) when I was castigated for sharing a Facebook memory of a talk about Crimea three years ago organized by friends of mine.

I shared this memory with the comment: "Bruce has been paying attention to NATO encroachment on Ukraine for a while now."

Here's the pushback:

For weeks I've been hounded with gotcha questions from a certain Twitter account. "What are your views on WWII?" was one of her more absurd questions. Was I supposed to answer in tweets? 

I suggested that this person could read this blog and search for terms like "WWII" to read my essays on the subject. But I don't think she is actually interested in doing that.

Yesterday's gotcha question:

Since I've been on the receiving end of these gotcha questions for weeks, I'm clear that the subtext is that I appear to be favoring the kind of appeasement that scholars of WWII think led to Hitler's Germany expanding its territory without much opposition.

I'm not going to concede that Putin is the reincarnation of Hitler no matter how many gotcha questions I am asked.

When I was a young history major the essential question in this field was, How did the German people let the Nazis take over their country?

As I've noted in this blog many times, since the unfortunate events of 9/11 it is horrifyingly clear how that happened -- because we're living through it. Information control is an essential part of the military takeover of a society, well along in the case of the U.S. in 2022.

The U.S. imperial project has hundreds (some say 800, depending on how you define "military base") of military installations in other countries. It has invaded and occupied numerous countries, and coup'd or regime changed a long list of others. Its leading space entrepreneur, a man who is deeply embedded in U.S. programs to militarize space, has tweeted "We'll coup anyone we want" in reference to toppling democratically elected governments to gain access to their mineral reserves.

"NATO expansion in Europe"  Source: Counterfire.org

Or just take a look at NATO and how it has been used to expand U.S. imperial ambitions steadily since its inception.

There are some salient facts about the current crisis that those jumping on the bandwagon to demonize Putin either don't know about or tend to forget.

#1 is expressed well here by Nina Beety, an anti-nuclear activist and academic who is able to see past the corporate media narrative of "Putin Bad" that we are all supposed to adhere to:

The 2015 Minsk-2 agreement required dialogue between Donetsk, Lugansk, and Kiev, which Kiev has refused to do, and all foreign actors were to withdraw personnel and equipment from Ukraine, which the U.S., UK, and Poland have refused to do [emphasis mine]. 

Instead, 150,000 Ukrainian soldiers, U.S., UK, and Polish personnel and increasing amounts of weaponry are massing near the communities of eastern Ukraine, reportedly preparing to attack, in violation of Minsk. 

#2 can be found by perusing George Washington University's National Security Archives website. Their 2017 article on this topic begins:

 U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s famous “not one inch eastward” assurance about NATO expansion in his meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev on February 9, 1990, was part of a cascade of assurances about Soviet security given by Western leaders to Gorbachev and other Soviet officials throughout the process of German unification in 1990 and on into 1991, according to declassified U.S., Soviet, German, British and French documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University (http://nsarchive.gwu.edu). 

The documents show that multiple national leaders were considering and rejecting Central and Eastern European membership in NATO as of early 1990 and through 1991, that discussions of NATO in the context of German unification negotiations in 1990 were not at all narrowly limited to the status of East German territory, and that subsequent Soviet and Russian complaints about being misled about NATO expansion were founded in written contemporaneous memcons and telcons at the highest levels. 

The documents reinforce former CIA Director Robert Gates’s criticism of “pressing ahead with expansion of NATO eastward [in the 1990s], when Gorbachev and others were led to believe that wouldn’t happen.”...

The key phrase, buttressed by the documents, is “led to believe.” 

#3 is a fact that few know about but which I haven't been able to get out of my head since I heard it shared on an antiwar organizing call last week: after the 2014 coup, the U.S. intended to put a naval base in Crimea. This led to a vote on whether or not the people favored annexation by Russia and, in a landslide, they did.

A local resident rescues a dog from a fire in a house destroyed in the Ukrainian armed forces' air attack on the village of Luganskaya on July 2, 2014 (RIA Novosti/Valeriy Melnikov) © RIA Novosti  source: Russia Today video

#4 is an example of so-called "facts on the ground" which are easily documented but which the corporate press in the U.S. steadfastly refuse to report: Ukraine has been shelling civilians in the Donbass region -- i.e. on their border with Russia -- for years and has killed around 14,000 and injured many others.

But, yeah, Putin bad. All you need to know. Get back to work or playing wordle. 

You'll need to look up when WWIII begins with another land war in Europe. At that point, probably the only salient fact left will be that the Russian Federation has pledged no first use of nukes, while the U.S. has adamantly refused to promise the same security measures to preserve life on the planet.

There's an old Russian saying that in really sophisticated propaganda, even its opposite is not true. 

So if "Putin bad" is not true, maybe "Putin good" is not true either. 

That said, I would appreciate it if my critics would stop imposing their false binary on me.

#BlackHistoryMonth The Case For Reparations

Staff Sergeant Herbert Ellison explains the G.I. Bill of Rights to the African American members of the quartermaster trucking company. Library of Congress/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images

One of my proudest moments as a mom is when one of my kids as an undergrad got his essay making the case for reparations included in a philosophy textbook. Of course I read it at the time and admired it, and of course I can no longer find it in my copious archives. 

Also of course we know that Black author Ta-Nehisi Coates' 2019 essay "The Case for Reparations" has become part of the canon at this point. 

An excerpt:

Two hundred fifty years of slavery. Ninety years of Jim Crow. Sixty years of separate but equal. Thirty-five years of racist housing policy. 

Until we reckon with our compounding moral debts, America will never be whole.

Now, in 2022, the U.S. is still far from whole and in fact becoming more fragmented every day. There's an essay in that, but what I'd like to focus on today is one of the most surprising things I learned when I still worked as a history teacher.

First group of Black members of the Women’s Army Corps assigned to serve overseas in 1945, the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion. (U.S. Department of Defense/National Archives)

Black veterans of WWII did not receive their GI bill benefits.

Only a white person could be as incredulous as I was when I found this out rather late in life.

My own father went to college on the G.I. bill. My maternal grandfather refused to use his G.I. bill benefits as he was so digusted by the Army that drafted him and sent him into Nagasaki after destroying the city and its inhabitants with a nuclear bomb.

The original bill in 1944 was written to offer equal opportunities for all veterans to access funds for education and loan guarantees to buy homes. 

Unfortunately, the states and local governments were then empowered to disburse the funds. So Black GI's were turned down when applying for tuition or home loan guarantees that white veterans were getting. 

Local control often sounds good on paper but mostly, I believe, results in lack of equity and a continuation of structural racism. Black Girl in Maine blogger Shay Stewart-Bouley recently called on white "allies" to stop with the empty performances of antiracism and run for office.

The other side is increasingly joining every part of local government they can to set back Black folks but you don't know what you can do? Local election boards, school boards, see a theme here?

We are beyond reading books, donating and trainings.

— Shay Stewart Bouley (@blackgirlinmain) February 3, 2022

She's not wrong. (Full disclosure: I just made another reparations payment, albeit small, but something I do regularly. You can, too.)

In the super right wing area where I live, me getting elected is doubtful and I can no longer drive after dark anyway. These are true facts but it is also true that I would rather crawl over broken glass than sit through discussions of snow plow purchases and bus maintenance past my bedtime. Foreign policy is my thing, as progressive school curriculum was for 25 years. So, yes, I have guilt about this.

Back to the case for reparations.

What are the generational impacts of being shut out of home ownership and/or college tuition?

 Just some of the long-term effects:

• Paying rent to build someone else's equity rather than your own.

• Being unable to leverage the resource of equity in real estate to educate your kids, or refinance to improve your home, or buy a car, or whatever else people do via refinancing their mortgage.

• Lack of access to jobs that require college degree(s) and have real financial benefits over the long term e.g. full coverage health care, employer contributions to retirement savings, company car, etc.

• Lack of access to generational wealth, the resource other people use to finance the costs of college and grad school, or make a down payment on a first home, or the capital to start a business.

Median net worth for white families in the 2019 study above: $188,000.

Median net worth for Black families in the 2019 study above: $24,000.

Enforced poverty is a structural problem, and poverty has a cascade of associated problems including poor health, shortened life expectancy, high maternal mortality, and a reduced ability to bounce back from an emergency, accident, or illness.

I didn't create these conditions but I have certainly benefited from them in the working class/middle class family I come from. It would be impossible to live in the U.S. as a white person and not benefit from the legacy of slavery and white supremacy.

In case the embedded video of Ta-Nehisi Coates' testimony to Congress on reparations doesn't work for you, here's a direct link: https://youtu.be/kcCnQ3iRkys.

I hope if you're white like me you'll find recipients and make your reparation payments today.

Another group whose work I admire and contribute to is the Black Alliance for Peace. 

But follow your heart. Go ahead and share your wealth with a Black author, artist, athlete, student, organizer, or another Black person you know or know about.

Important point: make your reparations payments with no strings attached. 

The recipients don't owe us anything. On the contrary, we owe them.

Mainers Brave Bitter Cold To Join Thousands Across The U.S. Demanding: No War With Russia!

photo credit: Martha Spiess

Yesterday thousands rallied across the U.S. to protest the threat of war with Russia, expansion of NATO, and arming Ukraine at taxpayer expense. 

photo credit: Bob Klotz

Around 30 people stood in Topsham at the big intersection where thousands of people passed by during the hour long protest. Sponsoring organizations Maine Natural Guard, Peaceworks of Greater Brunswick, Peace Action Maine, Maine Veterans for Peace and WILPF-Maine sent representatives. It was also exciting to see members of many other organizations in our state join us including Maine Poor People's Campaign and 350 Maine. 

WMTW Channel 8 and WABI Channel 5 news both ran segments on our protest that included my statement: "I have grandchildren. They don't want nuclear war. My children don't want nuclear war. And all the people you see standing out here don't want nuclear war.

What happened to diplomacy? Let's sit down and talk. Let's talk about our mutual security needs and work something out."

Many of the messages shared yesterday reflected a concern that nuclear war could be a consequence of U.S.-NATO military attacks on Russia. 

Cynthia Howard in Topsham photo credit: Martha Spiess

Although the corporate press have repeated that unnamed sources believe Russia plans to invade Ukraine, no evidence for this claim has been produced.  Ukraine and NATO nations have moved approximately 150,000 troops and nuclear-capable weapons to several borders with Russia, and in response Russia has increased to around 100,000 the troops stationed on its own border with Ukraine. 

Russia has repeatedly said it has no intention of invading Ukraine.

The president of Ukraine has asked the U.S. and NATO to tone down their bellicose rhetoric as it is alarming the people of that nation.

Note that Russia has a long-standing no first use policy on nuclear weapons. The U.S. does not, nor has it signed the United Nations treaty on the ban of nuclear weapons after more than a year in effect.

photo credit: Russell Wray

Elsewhere in Maine yesterday a group including Veterans for Peace members gathered on a bridge in Ellsworth. Russell Wray reported: "We stood for an hour and got quite a bit of positive response, honks, thumbs up, and even clapping." It was bitterly cold throughout, and Rob Shetterly reported that he thought about jumping into the Union River to warm up. We also heard that a group stood in Bucksport.

An online rally at noon brought together representatives of national and international peace groups including the Black Alliance for Peace, United National Antiwar Coalition, the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, World Beyond War, WILPF-U.S and many more. Recording on YouTube & Facebook. 

Bruce Gagnon and I were on from Maine, and Bruce spoke to his experiences visiting Russia and the Crimea and Donbass regions of Ukraine following the 2014 coup that installed a Nazi-aligned government there. Bruce's same day blog post about U.S. mercenary corporation Blackwater joining the Nazi Azov battalion in Donbass may be read here.

Photo source: Organizing Notes

Militias displaying Nazi insignia are common in Ukraine and operate there with the tacit agreement of the government.

I spoke about how U.S. imperialism is in trouble abroad as Russia and China released a joint statement on security, economic development, and public health policy just prior to the opening of the Winter Olympic games in Beijing. Meanwhile, the Biden administration is in trouble at home with extremely low approval ratings. No national plan for public health in a pandemic as U.S. deaths approach 900,000 without universal healthcare and galloping inflation further impoverishing those struggling to feed and house themselves are contributing to loss of faith in the current government's ability to respond to people's needs. 

Promoting a land war in Europe seems to be a desperate strategy to improve the Biden administration's approval ratings as nonstop war coverage by corporate press outlets tends to improve a war president's standing in opinion polls.

Meanwhile, in calls with investors, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin expressed pleasure that the worsening situation in Ukraine is helping their profits.

See reporting by Sarah Lazare here.

Feb 5 demonstrators in New York City, photo courtesy Codepink