CITIZENS COUNTER-PROPAGANDA

PANDAVI100—Being like water does not equate well with being wet behind the ears. The protesters are predominantly young, a lost generation of misplaced hopes. What does water mean to them? What are their objectives? Recall Lip Man’s words to Bruce Lee: “never be in frontal opposition to any problems, but control it by swinging with it.” Is it in that spirit that they act?

GEORGE GALLOWAY—As China has proved, it was perfectly possible for the Soviet Union to adapt, to correct mistakes, to find a synthesis between capitalism and socialism which worked. A cat neither black nor white but which continued to catch mice. A solution which did not require the liquidation of the state, the abandonment of the mission and the ceding of territory to the endless provocations of the imperialist camp.

PATRICK ANDERSON—Proponents of press freedom have become accustomed to Pentagon and national security state attacks on Assange, but Snowden’s puzzling claims about the white-haired Australian and his transparency organization are exceptionally dangerous because they come from an otherwise highly respectable and trustworthy source, and at a time when there is otherwise a virtual media blackout on WikiLeaks.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—So who is this “savvy official”? Who is this courageous whistleblower who boldly shone the light of truth upon the mechanisms of power in the interests of the common man? Who is this brave, selfless individual who set off an impeachment inquiry by taking a stand and revealing the fact that the US president made a phone call in July urging Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to help investigate corruption allegations against Joe Biden and his son?

PETER KOENIG—Do they not realize that their brothers and sisters in Syria, Yemen, Palestine, Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, and in many more places of conflict and extreme poverty, are being killed left and right by the US-NATO killing machine, by famine, by war-related diseases, and by US vassal states, the very nations from where they, the rich kids, come to protest against climate change, but NOT against war? When do they wake up to reality? Maybe never, or when it’s too late – when even they are being bombed by the never-ending neoliberal greed-driven wars.