MATT TAIBBI—MSNBC opinion columnist Zeesham Aleem just penned the latest in what’s become a parade of hit pieces from mainstream outlets directed at me and other independent journalists. Even by the low standards of the genre, “How the populist left has become vulnerable to the populist right” is a humorous standout. It argues that after I spent a month detailing how the FBI, DHS, DOD, CIA and other agencies built a system for mass delivery of censorship requests to firms like Twitter and Facebook, I helped fuel a subculture that “could funnel people from leftism to authoritarianism.”
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DEBORAH ARMSTRONG—
Civilians in the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk have been struggling for independence from their Banderite overlords since 2014, when the coup known as Maidan tore Ukraine apart. The Russian-speaking population which makes up the majority in the region known as the Donbas, in Eastern Ukraine, have been under attack for eight years by the neo-Nazis in Western Ukraine, who spread the ideology of Bandera and the Nazis, with support from the United States and other NATO countries.
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RAMIN MAZAHERI—The Yellow Vests is a political party that is invariably labeled as “far-left” and “extreme left” in the mainstream media (although I rank them as simply “left”), and which is led by Jean-Luc Melenchon, who to the mainstream media is invariably a “far-left firebrand”. How can this be true and yet the Yellow Vests are also right-wing xenophobes? They are leftist in economic and political ideology yet far-right racists in cultural matters? What an absurdity and falsehood!
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JACQUES PAUWELS—Western historiography tends to focus on the Wehrmacht’s spectacular advances and victories in the opening stages of Operation Barbarossa, while ignoring or minimizing its losses; conversely, the Soviet losses receive plenty of attention, while any Soviet successes tend to be ignored or downplayed. Even though the Wehrmacht’s performance did indeed appear to be very impressive, Hitler’s blitzkrieg in the east started to lose its blitz qualities after only a few weeks. Robert Kershaw, a specialist in the German-Soviet war, has described how “Blitzkrieg momentum petered out” as early as the first week of July, “the tempo faltered” in the following weeks, and the vanguards ceased “sprinting as they had done in the Polish and French campaigns.”
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MATTHEW EHRET—When Benjamin Franklin was asked in the closing days of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, what sort of nation had been established, his response was “a republic… if you can keep it.” This statement clearly echoes a profound understanding that the republic he led in establishing is not a democracy, nor is it a monarchy, nor tyranny, nor oligarchy… but rather a society ruled by representatives of the people. This society only works if a cultural standard is maintained which itself involves the constant recreation of an informed and morally developing culture with EACH GENERATION where each citizen learns to use their minds and strive to become true philosophers.
