AMERICAN PROPAGANDA

ANDREI MARTYANOV—Ridenour’s documenting of the evolution of American Imperialism of the 1960s, to its newer, much less competent and thus more dangerous modern-day version, from US unleashing the bloody war in Syria to a blatant neo-Nazi coup in Ukraine, is excellent. It shows a continuity of American exceptionalist views, based, to a large degree on a complete [and characteristically arrogant] ignorance of Russian history, culture and intentions.

The west’s narrative around the Ukraine-Russia conflict is that NATO is merely interested in helping plucky, democratic Ukraine fend off an attack from Russia and its war criminal president, Vladimir Putin. But peek behind the facade and it becomes apparent that the real reason for the war is much simpler: money. And now the United States has inked a deal to sell liquified natural gas to the European Union to replace a substantial amount of the natural gas previously provided by Russia. Jimmy and journalist Caleb Maupin discuss the financial incentives that are more likely driving NATO’s stance in Ukraine than any possible moral considerations.

Viral video impresario Matt Orfalea has done it again, this time exposing the war propagandists in the news media who take money from weapons manufacturers and then push endless weapons shipments to Ukraine – all without ever revealing their conflict of interest! Jimmy and American comedian Kurt Metzger enjoy Orfalea’s deft editing touch as he hilariously sends up the war profiteering industry.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—One of the many, many interesting things about this occurrence is the likelihood that Bush’s words tumbled out in the way they did because he’s either heard a lot of criticisms of his invasion or has been thinking a lot about them; a familiar neural pathway would explain why his brain chose the exact worst word he could possibly swap out for “Ukraine” in that moment. This would be a small light in the darkness for we ordinary folk who oppose war and love peace, because it suggests that even the worst empire managers cannot fully insulate themselves from our criticisms.

ERIC ZUESSE—On 4 February 1990, U.S. President George Herbert Walker Bush — an heir of Nazi-American wealth — privately instructed Germany’s Chancellor Helmut Kohl to ignore what Bush and his Administration and Kohl himself (under Bush’s instruction)  had promised verbally to the Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev and to Gorbachev’s Administration. This was that — as Bush’s James Baker had put it — NATO would not expand “one inch to the east” if the Soviet Union would allow East Germany to become ruled by America’s ally West Germany and if the U.S.S.R. would end its communism and its NATO-mirror military alliance Warsaw Pact. Bush told Kohl that instead the Cold War would secretly continue on the U.S.-and-allied side, until the Soviet Union would become totally conquered: that the USSR’s quitting the Cold War would not suffice, but that conquest of the USSR would remain the U.S.-and-allied (including NATO’s) real goal, and would remain Germany’s goal.