AMERICAN PROPAGANDA

Khrushchev’s rise to power, and the revisionism he instituted, was built on many lies and the demonisation of Stalin. His actions effectively destroyed the global communist movement, invigorated the enemies of revolution everywhere, generated a great ideological split with China, and paved the road for America’s ascendancy to sole superpower status after the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991.

ERIC ZUESSE—What can explain these recent instances, proven by Agence France-Press, in which outright frauds — lies (in the form of faked photos and videos) — are being spread online to support the agenda of breaking off, from China, Hong Kong (which has been historically always a part of China) so as to make Hong Kong an ‘independent’ nation?

P. GREANVILLE—The situation was counterintuitive. Why would a nation at the top of its international game, in fact the world’s uncontested superpower, financially able to command the highest levels of consumer technology and the best and most abundant natural inputs, not to mention probably one of the mos capable labor forces in history, suddenly begin to turn out inferior cars? After all, the consumer revolution in “durables” had been detonated by Henry Ford in the 1910’s by the mass manufacturing of cars that were known for their dependability bordering on indestructibility.

ERIC SCHECHTER—The USA hasn’t behaved as a “Christian nation.” It is the wealthiest country in the history of the world, but in it many people are poor, homeless, and hungry. You can find one begging on every major street corner. [And the US is the world’s chief purveyor of war, interventions, and regimes that oppose and destroy social justice, the cure for the ills of poverty and inequality.—Ed]

Meanwhile, the rich tell us to trust the market, which they claim is wise. In essence, our present system is worship of the market.

GLENN GREENWALD—Arguably the most pernicious and prolific disseminator of organized disinformation campaigns is NBC News, which includes its cable unit MSNBC. We have spent the last several months working on a mini-documentary demonstrating how most of the coordinated lies from the U.S. security state were spread by a tiny handful of pundits, three of whom — Rachel Maddow, all-but-official CIA spokesman Ken Dilanian, and former Bush/Cheney spokesperson Nicolle Wallace — work for NBC News. That report will be published shortly.