TRUTH & TRUTHTELLERS

GILBERT DOCTOROW—Over the course of the past six weeks, I have several times pointed to the changing mood of Shakhnazarov with respect to the ‘special military operation in Ukraine.’  At first he was buoyant, then he was fearful that the operation was going badly and running out of control, and finally he appeared to be ‘all in,’ looking for ways for Russia to win decisively and quickly.

Last night, we heard from yet another mood swing.  I bring it to the attention of readers, because it has great relevance to the current complete passivity of our general public in the face of some very peculiar policy decisions with respect to Russia being made at the highest levels in the USA and in Europe, with zero public consultation so far.

To be specific, Shakhnazarov expressed amazement and deep worry that Western leaders have literally ‘lost their minds’ by pursuing measures to destabilize Russia in the hope of precipitating the overthrow of Vladimir Putin and maybe even the disintegration of Russia in a way similar to the dissolution of the USSR in late 1991. 

ED CURTIN—Jean-Paul Sartre called this bad faith (mauvaise foi), a form of mental trickery in which one tries to “lie” to oneself – an impossibility since the liar and the one lied to are the same person – which means the deceiver must really know the truth that he is trying to conceal from the deceived.  This form of split consciousness allows those who serve a rapacious system to attempt to deceive themselves and others that they are serving a just cause.  Such attempts demand an actor’s skill and the quelling of one’s inner voice.  But there are very many actors among us, as Nietzsche said, not genuine ones, but bad actors.  Fauci, Gates, et al. are bad actors in a propaganda film, at least for those who know how propaganda is produced and bad acting exposed.  Robert Kennedy is such an astute critic.

We have a name for such foolishness: social imperialism. A social imperialist is anyone who espouses socialism yet promotes imperialism. Social imperialism doesn’t require evidence, just racism and pro-American chauvinism. It is the subtlest variant of American exceptionalism. While claiming to be against police brutality, mass incarceration, and drone warfare, social imperialists huddle alongside the State Department to demonize nations abroad that US imperialism desperately wants to destroy.

MAX PARRY—“The principal conclusion of our study is that fire did not cause the collapse of WTC 7 on 9/11, contrary to the conclusions of NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) and private engineering firms that studied the collapse. The secondary conclusion of our study is that the collapse of WTC 7 was a global failure involving the near-simultaneous failure of every column in the building.”

PCR—Ulfkotte’s book destroys the illusion/delusion that there is anywhere in the Western world an independent press. Ulfkotte describes in detail the cognitive appropriation of journalists by elites. Journalists serve as propagandists and public relations agents for intelligence agencies, businesses, lobbying organizations, politicians, and US foreign policy. The function of journalism is to deliver to the people the explanations that serve the interests of elites and Washington’s foreign policy.