AMERICAN PROPAGANDA

PHILIP A. FARRUGGIO—Amazon is doing lots of business, and does present a needed service, especially during this pandemic. Yet, they were recently ‘ Outed’ for charging outrageous prices for essential Covid fighting products, like alcohol, disposable gloves, disinfectant wipes to name a few. On top of that Amazon has a history of getting customers to pay for shipping, when all one need do is carefully scroll down the ‘ Order bar’ and check off  ‘ Free Shipping’ . So what if the order takes 3 to 5 days longer? Saving money is saving money… just ask Jeff Bezos. Of course, as with Fed Ex and Wal-Mart and countless corporations, Amazon is NON UNION. Take it from a guy whose grandfather literally fought in the streets of NYC for better conditions in his trade.

MoA—That is of course bollocks. The Ukrainian plot was real. We know that because officials from the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, which is supported by the U.S. State Department, have officially admitted it and because the Ukrainian media have been all over the story.

TOM CARTER—It is not a question of “speaking ill of the dead” but of maintaining a standpoint of independence and objectivity, and of not getting swept away by the deluge of official propaganda. These campaigns of official mourning are a ritualized spectacle of American political life. The deceased is inevitably held up as an “icon,” a “towering figure” and a “legend.” Every bourgeois politician and media personality is expected to line up to render the proper obeisance, with each individual politician “paying respects” becoming a news item in itself. The accomplishments of the decedent, sometimes real and sometimes invented, are spun out of all proportion to reality. The propaganda campaign functions as a sort of loyalty test, with anyone who is not willing to recite the official slogans flagged as a possible traitor.

ELIJAH MAGNIER—In the Levant, both US and Russian forces are present in a small area, but with different goals, interests and reasons. Russia seeks the unity of Syria because it is its region of influence. Long-term stability must be established there as an example to other nations. That is not an easy goal to achieve when the US is operating in Syria, interfering with the flow of food, oil and gas in an area considered to be the resource reservoir of the entire country.

The Russian embassy is still operating from Tunisia. I hope it will return to Tripoli as soon as some basic security is ensured there. A number of embassies operate there, but the security is very poor; so it was decided that Russian diplomats would work from Tunis. As for Russian mediation between the Libyan National Army and the Government of National Accord as Libya’s main rivals, the embassy, ​​of course, maintains contacts with all Libyan parties; but the issue is much broader here, so Moscow is also actively involved in building bridges between the conflicting parties. The Russian Foreign Ministry, as well as the Ministry of Defence, is trying to promote practical steps to agree on a compromise solution that will help resolve the Libyan crisis, which is not easy. Let me remind you that all the problems that Libya is facing go back to 2011, when NATO, in gross violation of UN Security Council resolutions, conducted direct military aggression in Libya to overthrow the Muammar Gaddafi regime.