CITIZENS COUNTER-PROPAGANDA

PETER KOENIG—The IMF has been instrumental in helping to destroy the economy of myriad countries, notably, and to start with, the new Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union, and Greece, Ukraine and lately Argentina, to mention just a few.  Madame Christine Lagarde, as chief of the IMF, had a heavy hand in the annihilation of at least the last three mentioned. She is now taking over the Presidency of the European Central Bank (ECB). There, she expects to complete the job that Mario Draghi had started but was not quite able to finish: Further bleeding the economy of Europe, especially southern Europe into anemia.

DAVID W. PEAR—The success of the VHA is owed to its being socialized medicine, and its dedicated doctors, nurses, medical personnel and employees.  The dedicated men and women of VHA prove that not everybody is motivated by profit.  In fact, most people are not. The VHA is a federally-funded government healthcare system.  Unlike Medicare, Obamacare, and Medicaid it is not a health insurance program, which depends on the for-profit medial industry for healthcare.  At VHA the government owns the “bricks and mortar”:  the hospitals, clinics, etc.

ERIC ZUESSE—Okay, you might say, RT.com was already somewhat that (and more truthful than any of the U.S.-and-allied versions were), before the U.S. Government declared it to be a “foreign agent,” and yet the U.S. regime doesn’t do the same (in effect) banning against the BBC, or against other (U.S.-regime-allied) government-broadcasters. But what’s especially needed, all over the world, are non-U.S.-regime competitors (Russian or otherwise), against Google and Facebook and Twitter, etc., and not only against the U.S. regime’s ’news’-media (NYT, CBS, CNN, NPR, or other).

The NED’s focus on Hong Kong fits with the typical US approach to anti-government protest activity abroad. A government memo, leaked in 2017, confirmed that it is US policy to “emphasize” pro-democracy movements in adversary nations, while playing them down or ignoring them in friendly nations – Beijing has accused the US of orchestrating the movement and analysts have argued that encouraging unrest in Hong Kong is seen to be beneficial for Washington as US President Donald Trump wages a trade and tech war with China.

PEPE ESCOBAR—The fine-print details of the Russia-China “comprehensive strategic partnership” as well as Russia’s push for Greater Eurasia were also discussed at length in Vladivostok. A crucial factor is that as well as China, Russia and India have made sure their trade and economic relationship with Iran – a key node of the ongoing, complex Eurasian integration project – remains.