McCarthyism, European style: The elite crackdown on Ukraine dissent
Experts lambasted as Kremlin mouthpieces turned out to be right
By Eldar Mamedov | Responsible Statecraft | December 12, 2024
As the war between Russia and Ukraine is framed by the ruling politicians and commentators in Europe and America as part of a purported global struggle between democracies and autocracies, the quality of democracy in the West itself has taken a hit.
The dominant voices advocating for Ukraine’s victory and Russia’s defeat, both defined in maximalist and increasingly unattainable terms, are intent on snuffing out more thoughtful and nuanced perspectives, thus depriving the public of a democratic debate on the existential questions of war and peace.
In a familiar pattern throughout the West, respected academics who correctly predicted the quagmire Ukraine and the West now find themselves in have been smeared and delegitimized as Kremlin mouthpieces, subjected to harassment, marginalization and ostracism.
The situation is particularly alarming in Europe. While the Ukraine debate in the U.S. is, to a worrying extent, shaped by pro-militarist think tanks, such as the Atlantic Council, hawkish politicians and neoconservative pundits, a countervailing movement consisting of pro-restraint voices has been growing. They include Defense Priorities, the CATO Institute, publications like The Nation on the left, and The American Conservative on the right, and academics like Stephen Walt, John Mearsheimer, and Jeffrey Sachs, among others. There is more space for alternative voices in American discourse.
In Europe, by contrast, foreign policy debates tend to simply echo the most hawkish voices inside Washington’s Beltway.
Sweden is a particularly telling illustration of that trend. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Swedish government and political class swiftly moved to join NATO. Yet, as one of the leading Swedish international relations scholars Frida Stranne told me in an interview, “No proper debate was held on the key questions, like whether Russia’s aggression against Ukraine indeed was such an immediate security threat for Sweden that it had to ditch the neutral status it enjoyed even during the Cold War?” (I can testify myself, from my work as a senior foreign policy adviser in the European Parliament in early 2022, that even some members of the then-ruling Swedish social-democratic party were aghast at the government running roughshod over alternative views on NATO).
Further, in a conversation with me, Stranne, while acknowledging that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “an egregious breach of international law,” pointed to U.S. policies since 2001, such as the invasion of Iraq, noting that they “have helped to undermine international legal principles and set the precedent for other countries acting ‘preemptively’ against perceived threats.”
In the same interview, she also warned that “a refusal to countenance a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine is leading the world perilously close to the brink of a major military conflict between NATO and Russia.”
While such points are routinely made by fairly mainstream scholars in the U.S., in Sweden they triggered a vicious campaign against Stranne and made her nearly untouchable by the media and in foreign policy circles. Leading media outlets vilified her as a U.S. hater and a “Putinist.”
Germany is another example of how enforced groupthink led to a marginalization of dissenting perspectives in political debates. What is particularly noteworthy is the speed and radicalism with which the hawks in think tanks, media, and political parties managed to redefine the debate in a country previously known for its now-defunct Ostpolitik, a policy of pragmatic engagement with the Soviet Union and later Russia.
One of Germany’s most prominent foreign policy experts, Johannes Varwick of the University Halle-Wittenberg, has long defied the trend and advocated for diplomacy. In December 2021, together with a number of high-ranking former military officers, diplomats and academics, he warned that a massive deterioration in relations with Russia could lead to war — due, in part, to the West’s refusal to take seriously Russia’s security concerns, chiefly related to the prospects of NATO’s eastward expansion.
Yet such views earned Varwick accusations of “serving Russian interests.” As a result, as he told me in an interview, his “ties with the political parties and ministries responsible for conducting Germany’s foreign and security policy were severed.”
Experts in neutral countries were not spared marginalization as well. Austrian Prof. Gerhard Mangott, one of the most eminent experts on Russia in the German-speaking world, pointed to a “shared responsibility” of Russia, Ukraine, and Western countries for the failure to resolve the post-2014 Ukrainian conflict peacefully. Such analysis, as Mangott told me, led to his “prompt excommunication by the German-speaking scientific community which turned quickly to political activism and became party to the war.”
The tragic irony, of course, is that these ostracized voices have proved to be correct in most respects about this war.
When, despite his warnings, the Russian invasion of Ukraine did occur, Varwick, who condemned it as illegal and unacceptable, called for further efforts to find a realistic negotiated solution to the conflict. As he told me, this should “firstly include a neutral status for Ukraine with strong security guarantees for the country. Secondly, there would be territorial changes in Ukraine that would not be recognized under international law but must be accepted as a temporary modus vivendi, and thirdly, the prospect of suspension of some sanctions in the event of a change in Russia’s behavior must be on offer.”
In March 2022, both Ukraine and Russia were close to a deal broadly along these same parameters. It did not work, because, among other reasons, the West encouraged Ukraine to believe that a military “victory” was possible. The role of then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson in undermining the talks is now generally acknowledged. What is, however, particularly striking is that Johnson recently himself admitted that he saw the war in Ukraine as a proxy war against Russia — a claim made by Stranne and the Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi in their 2023 book, in Swedish, “The Illusion of American Peace,” for which they were lambasted for purportedly pushing Russian narratives.
Fast forward to late 2024, and, faced with growing difficulties on the battlefield, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is now signaling that he could go along with some of the elements outlined by Varwick; namely, accepting some de facto territorial losses to prevent even bigger ones should the war continue.
Today, Ukraine is farther away from achieving anything remotely resembling a military victory than at any point since February 2022. Contrary to the expectations in the U.S. and EU, sanctions neither tanked Russia’s economy nor changed its policies in the ways the West sought.
In the West itself, political forces that urge negotiations to end the war are ascendant, as evidenced by the election of Donald Trump as president in the United States and the rise of anti-war parties in Germany, France and other EU countries. Public opinion surveys consistently show a preference of the majority of Europeans for a negotiated end to the war.
The reality is, irrespective of the outcome of the war in Ukraine, a modus vivendi between the West and Russia will have to be reestablished to ensure, in Varwick’s words, “their coexistence in a Cold War 2.0 without a permanent escalation.” Restoring an open democratic debate about this vital issue is long overdue.
Listening to the experts who have a proven track record of correct analysis would be a necessary first step.
Eldar Mamedov is a Brussels-based foreign policy expert.
Moldovan President Sandu Plans to Seize Transnistria Power Station – Russian Intel Service
Sputnik – 23.12.2024
Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) said that Moldovan President Maia Sandu had demanded that the country’s government prepare a plan to take over the Cuciurgan power station in Transnistria.
Sandu held a meeting with the Moldovan government to discuss the country’s energy security issues, the SVR said in a statement on Monday. During the meeting, the president “lost her temper” after hearing a report by Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean on the potential energy supply problems Moldova could face after the expiration of the Russia-Ukraine natural gas transit agreement on December 31, the statement read.
“The president was not sobered by the reminder that the right bank of Moldova is almost entirely dependent on electricity supplies from the Cuciurgan power station in Transnistria. After ‘flying into a rage,’ the president demanded that preparations be made for a violent seizure of the power station,” the SVR said.
Sandu flatly refused to discuss the issue of Moldova’s energy supplies with the Ukrainian authorities after the gas transit agreement expired, the statement added. The president said that if Moscow did not supply Moldova with natural gas, Chisinau would “take revenge” on Transnistria, according to the SVR.
The meeting concluded with Sandu’s remarks about the need to develop a military operation plan to establish control over Transnistria and eliminate the Russian peacekeeping presence in the region, the SVR said.
Since December 2022, Moldovagaz has been sourcing natural gas from Moldovan energy utility Energocom and Gazprom. The Russian gas is supplied to Transnistria in exchange for electricity, which is used to power the rest of Moldova. Moldova’s Cuciurgan power station covers 80% of the country’s electricity needs.
Transnistria, where Russians and Ukrainians make up 60% of the population, sought to secede from Moldova even before the collapse of the Soviet Union, fearing that Moldova would join Romania amid a wave of nationalism. In 1992, after an unsuccessful attempt by Moldovan authorities to resolve the issue by force, Transnistria became a de facto territory outside Chisinau’s control.
Geopolitical auto-asphyxiation: Here’s why Germany is heading for irreversible decline
Berlin is unable or unwilling to finally abandon a pernicious groupthink that subordinates its interests to Washington’s misguided political agenda
By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | December 22, 2024
Oops, he’s done it again: Tech mogul, richest man in the world, and also now new bestie of American President-elect Donald Trump, Elon Musk has used his massive social media clout – as owner of X and a personal account with more than 200 million followers – to post about politics. And here we don’t mean his unhelpful recent intervention in how Americans – barely – keep their rickety government contraption from stuttering to a halt for lack of cash.
Nope, this is about Germany: With regard to Europe’s Sick Man on the Spree (there is another one on the Seine, of course), in his first post Musk waltzed in, guns blazing to support the right-wing AfD (Alternative for Germany) party in the run-up to the snap elections on February 23.
Only the AfD, he pronounced with typical modesty, can “save Germany.” In a second post, a few days later, Musk reacted to a murderous attack on a German Christmas market in the city of Magdeburg. This time, he called Germany’s lame-duck Chancellor Olaf Scholz “an incompetent fool” who should resign forthwith.
Some Germans are aghast. How dare Musk, an American, intervene in our elections? Deeply unpopular German minister of health Karl Lauterbach, for instance, went almost comically Victorian with his performance of righteous ire for public display, calling Musk’s statements “undignified and highly problematic.” Shocking, shocking indeed!
Interestingly enough, most of the same Germans still have no problem with Joe Biden, also an American, having helped Ukraine blow up their vital energy infrastructure and then mightily promoting the de-industrialization of Germany and the EU as a whole by subsidizing companies which move to produce in the US. Others think it’s totally normal that German politicians, such as Michael Roth – head of the German parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, no less – massively interfere in the politics of, say, Georgia, not only by messing with its elections but also trying to literally instigate a coup. Judge not, lest ye be judged…
So, let’s cut out the daft pearl-clutching: I am German, and I find it very objectionable when Musk fails to post about the genocide in Gaza, instead taking the side of the Israeli perpetrators. But I could not be less concerned about him stating his opinion – it’s not more than that – about what party would be best for Germany, even thought I do not agree at all. As to calling Scholz what he actually is, go ahead Elon. There, I am even on your side.
Once we dispense with the huffy-puffy theatrics, what is really at stake here? And why would it even matter so much to some Germans what Musk has to say about their politics?
It’s not complicated: Musk has hit a very sore spot. And the name of that very sore spot is Germany. Yes, all of it, or at least, everything that has to do with its tanking economy and, frankly, delusional politics. Here’s how:
On December 16, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote in the German parliament. That was no surprise but the plan from the beginning. Or to be precise, since November 6, when the former governing coalition of Greens, Free Democrat market liberals, and Scholz’s own Social Democrats imploded with a nasty bang. After that, the no-confidence vote – even if it came with some predictable yet pretty fake drama and backbiting – was merely a formality on the way to snap elections, scheduled for February 23.
On the face of it, the above may look like a minor politics-as-usual hiccup: Sometimes coalitions don’t work out and a country needs new elections to – hopefully – start over with a new government. In postwar Germany (the Cold War Western version and the post-unification one together), this procedure – based on article 68 of the constitution – is not unprecedented; it has been used 5 times before.
But this is not that sort of case. Rather, the snap elections are only one small symptom of a much deeper, all-pervasive malaise: By regularly reading the news about Germany, you could easily come to feel that Europe’s former economic locomotive and political first-among-not-so-equals is now a very unhappy country, economically in severe, persistent decline and politically – to put it kindly – badly disoriented. And you would be right. Except things are even worse, and I write that, let me remind you, as a German.
For what’s really gloomy – indeed, quite literally hopeless – about the current German doom is that no one with even a remote chance at political power in Berlin is prepared to honestly face the root causes of the country’s misery. Germany is not merely in a mess; it also has a dysfunctional non-elite that is in total denial about how to fix that mess. But before we get to that elephant in the misery room that almost all German politicians fail to acknowledge, with stereotypical thoroughness, let’s look at the wasteland their failure has made.
Take a few highlights. There are 84 million Germans. According to a major research institute in the country, a quarter of them have found out that their income is insufficient to make ends meet. In a similar vein, another new study based on official government data pays special attention to the cost of having a roof, any roof, over your head. It has just found that 17.5 million Germans are living in poverty. That is 5.4 million more than previously assumed. The reason they had escaped the traditional statistics is that the cost of their abodes had simply not been factored in. Once you, realistically, do so, a whopping 20 percent of Germans fall under the official definition of “poor.”
No wonder then that ever more Germans need soup kitchens – in German “Tafeln” – to simply have enough to eat. Indeed, demand for housing has grown so much that they even have to ration the food they are doling out.
More and more Germans have to abandon their pets because they simply can’t afford them anymore: cats and dogs are becoming a “luxury item,” and keep people in a “poverty trap.” Germany’s business mood, meanwhile, is “slumping,” according to Bloomberg.
We could go on, but the picture should be clear enough: Germans may be a little on the “Angst” side in terms of temperament, but this time, they are really in trouble. How did that happen to the industrial powerhouse and export champion? The core of the problem is, of course, the economy. It takes not a grain of alarmism – ask Bloomberg again – to observe that its very future is in danger: It is “ravaged” by an energy crisis; Chinese competitors squeeze it, while Chinese markets are being lost; and then there is US President-elect Donald Trump and his threats of brutal tariffs. And all of that on top of persistent stagnation entering its fifth year.
Indeed, for two years already the German economy has simply “flatlined,” and business is (not) looking forward to yet another year of no growth. Germany, a long report has just summed it up, is “reaching a point of no return,” on a “path of decline that threatens to become irreversible.”
Here is the crux: The mainstream parties now contesting the snap elections recognize that the situation is dire. How could they not without being laughed out of the room? They all offer suggestions, as you would expect, for what to do about it. Let’s set aside that such suggestions look a little silly when coming from the parties that made up the last government coalition. Why didn’t they implement their ideas then, after all?
Let’s just note that everything is rather predictable: The Social Democrats stress public spending and infrastructure and make unfounded promises to protect ordinary Germans from social decline, as if that process were not well underway already.
The mainstream Conservatives (CDU-CSU) emphasize lower taxes, budget cuts, less bureaucracy and red tape, and the magic powers of the market to unleash new growth. The market liberals from the Free Democrats do the same, just more extremely. And the Greens promise everything somehow, and then some, while making no sense at all. Everything as usual, in other words.
And yet, none of the above even dare name the one key issue that a new government could resolve quickly and that would have a decisive and fast impact on the German economy: namely the cause of that energy crisis that has hit crucial “energy-intensive” sectors the hardest but is, of course, affecting every single business and all the households, that is, consumers, one way or the other. The reason for that odd blindness is purely political, because that cause is very easy to identify. It’s the “structural blow” of “the loss of cheap Russian energy,” as even Bloomberg acknowledges.
It is true: Germany has an abundance of problems, some long predating the war in and over Ukraine: demography, under-digitalization, the infamous “debt brake,” a public debt limit so primitively designed it makes reasonable deficits impossible, and so on. And yet, the politically produced and self-imposed (Russia did not cut off the cheap energy, the West did, including via violent sabotage as in the Nord Stream attacks) energy crisis is decisive.
Imagine Germany, if you wish, as a past-their-prime, somewhat out-of-shape middle-class type. In principle, there is no reason such a person cannot rebuild by pursuing a healthy diet and decent exercise. Except, of course, you also cut off their oxygen supply by strangling them.
The added irony: Germany – with plenty of help from its big brother “ally” America and its dependent sponger Ukraine – is strangling itself. Auto-asphyxiation is, of course, a well-known and potentially lethal perversion, but usually it’s associated with aging rock stars in lonely hotel rooms. Seeing a whole country do it is peculiar.
In the current German party system, only two parties show signs of being willing to address this core issue instead of avoiding it: The far-right/right-wing AfD under Alice Weidel and the left-conservative BSW under Sarah Wagenknecht. What do they have in common apart from that? Nothing. Except, they both won’t be able to influence German government policy, at least not soon, and not after the February elections. The AfD is, actually, the second-strongest political party after the CDU-CSU Conservatives, according to current polls. Think what you will about Musk’s political tastes (absolutely not mine), but it’s a fact that he has spoken up for a party that almost a fifth of German voters prefer.
However, the mainstream parties swear that they will not allow it into a governing coalition. The BSW is doing reasonably well for a newcomer but may even be struggling to clear the five-percent barrier to gain seats in the new parliament, and it is certainly far from gathering the amount of votes that would make it indispensable for coalition building.
Here’s the final irony: Germany’s fundamental problem is not actually economic. The economy is in catastrophic shape, make no mistake. But the reason for that is political and even intellectual and moral: The inability or unwillingness to finally abandon a pernicious group think that subordinates obvious and vital German interests to the misguided political agenda of, ultimately, Washington and does not allow for what is obviously needed urgently: re-establishing and repairing a rational relationship with Russia.
Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.
Pro-Western party funded anti-NATO candidate in EU state – media
RT | December 22, 2024
Allegations that Russia was behind a Romanian social media campaign that helped independent presidential candidate Calin Georgescu win a first round vote, and which contributed to the country’s constitutional court canceling the entire election, are false, an investigation has found.
Georgescu’s campaign was not funded by Russia but in fact by the pro-Western National Liberal Party (PNL), the media outlet Snoop has reported, citing the probe’s findings.
A critic of NATO and the EU and a staunch opponent of sending aid to Ukraine, Georgescu topped the first-round vote in Romania with 22.94%, beating other liberal leftist and democrat candidates.
Romania’s Constitutional Court promptly annulled the election ahead of the second-round vote, citing intelligence documents alleging ‘irregularities’ in Georgescu’s performance.
The documents claimed Georgescu’s candidacy was improperly promoted online, including on TikTok, by paid influencers and extremist right-wing groups, and that his campaign may have benefited from Russian interference – an allegation that Moscow has denied as “absolutely groundless.”
According to Snoop, Romania’s tax authorities analyzed financial flows and discovered that the campaign that promoted Georgescu on TikTok was in fact paid for by the PNL and run by Kensington Communication, a company which provides political marketing services, as well as online campaigns.
The briefs delivered to influencers were aimed at promoting “a responsible attitude and a mature choice” among Romanians that would help the country continue its “democratic path,” wrote Snoop.
Influencers were reportedly given a script to describe the qualities of a future president without giving a name. Some of them however left comments below the videos, providing Georgescu’s name.
“It is a shock to everyone that the public money that taxpayers had provided to the PNL was used to promote another candidate,” one expert involved in the investigation told the publication.
Kensington Communication has issued a statement alleging that its campaign had been “hijacked” or “cloned” and said it would file a criminal complaint.
The leak came on Friday, a day before the expiration of Romanian President Klaus Iohannis’ term, and just days before the supreme court is scheduled to hear the case initiated by Georgescu. Iohannis himself had earlier refused to leave office, citing the country’s legislation.
Georgescu, who was labelled “pro-Russian” by his critics, filed a lawsuit with the supreme court to challenge the annulment of the election results. The candidate’s lawyer described the situation as “a flagrant violation of the constitution” and “a coup d’état.” The first hearing is scheduled for December 23.
How the Captive Media Divides Us
By Thomas Eddlem | The Libertarian Institute | December 19, 2024
Most political differences in America today aren’t a result of moral differences, or even policy opinions. Rather, they are generated by divergent media consumption. There’s a huge difference between those whose news comes primarily from the corporate Big Five (CBS-Viacom, ABC-Disney, NBC-Universal, Fox-NewsCorp, and CNN-TimeWarner) and that handful of midsize legacy publications like PBS, The New York Times and Washington Post, than from those who get their news from independent media.
While the independent media can be inaccurate, it’s often when they contradict themselves. On the other hand, when the Big Five and its satellites are inaccurate, it’s typically in union, as a bloc, and always in defense of the Washington establishment.
I could detail one hundred of these blatant lies spun by the unified, corporate media over the past two decades, but for purposes of brevity let’s take a quick look at just ten widely reported lies in three sentences or less (and I’ll include extra links to news stories with the same false take, to total five sources for each story), refuted by primary sources or recanted by these same establishment media organs.
- Lie #1: Wearing cloth masks helps prevent COVID. “Public health messages should target audiences not wearing cloth face coverings and reinforce positive attitudes, perceived norms, personal agency, and physical and health benefits of obtaining and wearing cloth face coverings consistently and correctly,” the CDC inveighed on July 17, 2020, even though the same report acknowledged “widespread use of cloth face coverings has not been studied among the U.S. population.” The captive media dutifully lectured the public (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) about the alleged benefits of cloth masks in preventing COVID, even though the CDC had just re-published a meta-study of all nineteen public scientific studies of mass masking in May 2020 which concluded there was no scientific benefit for mass public cloth masking. And a giant study by Yale and Stanford researchers in Bangladesh in 2021 confirmed the earlier research, finding a very small benefit in wearing surgical masks “but see no statistically significant effect for cloth masks.”
- Lie #2: Donald Trump is a Russian spy. “A New Report Adds Evidence That Trump Was a Russian Asset,” a Slate.com headline blared in 2021, adding in the subtitle, “He helped Putin manipulate the U.S. election in 2020, as he did in 2016” (2, 3, 4, 5). But the reality is that the Durham Report of the special prosecutor concluded on May 12, 2023 that “neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation” and found the entire affair was devoid of evidence and had been a joint operation between the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign and friendly senior FBI officials, spread by a compliant media.
- Lie #3: COVID vaccines have no serious side effects. “No serious safety concerns were found in the clinical trials of the vaccines that have been authorized for use in the United States,” FactCheck.org claimed on March 4, 2021 (2, 3, 4, 5), but within months the same “fact-checker” site had amended its claim to include deadly reactions in the Johnson & Johnson vaccine (later pulled from the market for these reasons) and several serious side effects including myocarditis from the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines. Likewise, the CDC has now published a long list of side effects, including myocarditis, pericarditis, Guillain-Barré syndrome, thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome, and anaphylaxis.
- Lie #4: Russia put bounties on American soldiers in Afghanistan. “American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan—including targeting American troops,” New York Times reporter Charlie Savage claimed on June 26, 2020, in the heat of the election campaign, adding that President Trump “has yet to authorize any step” to counter it (2, 3, 4, 5). But, after the election, even NBC News admitted the whole story was fake from the beginning, as did other establishment-controlled outlets that echoed Biden administration admissions of the lack of proof for the highly politicized claim.
- Lie #5: Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation. “More than 50 former senior intelligence officials have signed on to a letter,” Politico claimed of the Hunter Biden laptop story in October 2020, “outlining their belief that the recent disclosure of emails allegedly belonging to Joe Biden’s son ‘has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation’” (2, 3, 4, 5). But the reality is the FBI testified under oath that the laptop story, which was suppressed on Facebook, Twitter and other social media before the election, was legitimate all along. And a congressional investigation revealed the “Russian disinformation” story was a result of the Joe Biden presidential campaign colluding with senior CIA officials.
- Lie #6: Donald Trump said there were “good people on both sides” of a white supremacist rally. “Trump Defends White-Nationalist Protesters: ‘Some Very Fine People on Both Sides’” blared the headline in The Atlantic, adding “The president backtracked from his remarks on Charlottesville just a day earlier” (2, 3, 4, 5). Even the fact-checkers observed this claim that Trump’s “both sides” quote was false from the start, and that the “both sides” quote was about a totally different topic, though establishment organs continue to repeat the lie to this day.
- Lie #7: Donald Trump said Liz Cheney should face a firing squad. “Now he’s talking about a firing squad,” Joe Scarborough ranted on MSNBC, on November 4, 2024, “for a Republican who is long ranked as one of the most conservative Republicans in Washington, DC” (2, 3, 4, 5). But Trump did no such thing. He simply called former Congresswoman Cheney a chicken-hawk, saying she’d have a less bellicose worldview if she were on the front lines. This is why the fact-check sites quickly called out this lie, and even uber chicken-hawk Jonah Goldberg had to recant the same claim as Scarborough.
- Lie #8: Hamas decapitated dozens of babies on October 7. “Dozens of babies were reportedly found dead, including some that had been beheaded,” NBC reported, “in an Israeli kibbutz Tuesday after the terrorist organization Hamas stormed the community” (2, 3, 4, 5). The reality that emerged from the widely spread story of Israeli propaganda was that no babies were beheaded, according to a France 24 investigation that looked through the names of the victims of the terrorist attack several weeks later, though one ten-month-old baby was killed by gunshot wounds in the combat crossfire.
- Lie #9: Joe Biden is in the best shape of his life and sharp as a tack. “F you if you can’t handle the truth,” Joe Scarborough lashed out on MSNBC on March 5, 2024, “This version of Biden, intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever” (2, 3, 4, 5). Progressive YouTuber Matt Orfalea did a nice compilation of how official Washington dutifully recited the lines from the “sharp as a tack” talking points memos circulated by the DNC. But the reality was admitted almost universally after Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate with Donald Trump, ending talk about “cheap fakes.” CNN and the Associated Press published stories in July admitting the media ran cover for “forgetful” Biden as they tried to ramp up pressure to unceremoniously dump the winner of all the Democratic primaries that year and replace him with Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention in August.
- Lie #10: Internet censorship was just corporations being responsible. “Twitter permanently suspended President Donald Trump’s account on Friday,” NBC news reported January 8, 2021, citing “the risk of further incitement of violence” and not mentioning that the decision was based on extraordinary pressure from the FBI and Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The removal of the sitting president of the United States from social media and many other prominent people was widely reported as entirely a corporate decision across the establishment media spectrum (2, 3, 4, 5). But the #TwitterFiles revealed these decisions were primarily the result of government pressure and not organic corporate decisions, with the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in Missouri v. Biden that the censored plaintiffs “presented extensive evidence of escalating threats—both public and private—by government officials aimed at social-media companies concerning their content-moderation decision.”
These lies help explain why independent media personalities like Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan, a comedian with a microphone, regularly get more than twenty million viewers for two-hour interviews with few commercials while CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News, with their billion-dollar studios and networks, rarely crack one million viewers with their forty-four minutes of content in an hour. The American people no longer trust what I’ve come to label the “captive media,” and consume far more independent media content. The captive media can call Trump a rapist, a fascist, a threat to democracy, and, as the November election revealed, most Americans will simply no longer believe their claims.
And the #TwitterFiles reveal why the media organs pushing official lies are best labeled the “captive media” and not the mainstream media, legacy media or the corporate media. They have been captured by the U.S. intelligence agencies, often with dozens or even hundreds of “former” intelligence officers in place on-air and on staff.
The American national mental health crisis that emerged as a result of Trump’s election in 2024 was entirely one-sided; the people who raged like infants on social media and said Trump voters were horrible people were limited to those who digested nothing but captive Media outlets like CNN, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, Fox, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and the censorious Big Tech companies.
Why is it only the Democrats who are saying they can’t have Thanksgiving dinner with their family? Why didn’t Republicans have the same reaction after their loss to Joe Biden in 2020? Although many Republicans who watch Fox News did avoid Thanksgiving as a result of fear-mongering over the COVID vaccine skepticism.
Part of the answer to the question “Why just the Democrats?” is the structure of the media which political partisans consume. Democrats consume media solely within the FBI, CIA, ODNI matrix that the #TwitterFiles revealed to the public and rarely or never encounter media that contradicts the official narrative being sold. Google searches, like Facebook and most other social media, are curated by precisely the same intelligence agencies. So it’s possible for Democrats to live entirely within the captive media echo chamber (even as they earnestly believe they are getting “both sides” by listening to Republican Senator Lindsay Graham talk about Israeli babies being slaughtered on October 7 or former Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney talk about Trump as a Putin asset) and assume that anyone with a heterodox opinion gets his information from some sketchy “dark web.” Republicans get a slightly different take with Fox News, and more importantly have trended toward relying progressively less on the captive media.
Republicans and independents hear something other than the captive media narrative.
The captive media echo chamber can occasionally be bipartisan, however. Back in 2020, in the throes of the COVID hysteria, Fox News viewers were also running around like fools with cloth masks on, viewing family members as ambulatory disease vectors, and judging those who took rational risks (or in the case of the experimental vaccine on young people who were getting myocarditis, avoided risks rationally) as bad or selfish persons.
Many Democrats are increasingly engaged in classic cult-like behavior as a result of the captive media drumbeat. “If you are going into a situation where you have family members, where you have close friends who you know have voted in ways that are against you,” Dr. Amanda Calhoun of Yale University told ABC’s The View, “it’s completely fine to not be around those people and to tell them why.” The idea that Democrats should separate themselves from family and friends because they have different political opinions has become widespread in the captive media (2, 3, 4, 5). And it’s part of the very definition of cultish behavior, which includes when “subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends.”
The way to bring your friends and family out of the cult of the captive media matrix is to cut cable television out of your home, and to track the lies of the captive media and discuss them with family and friends as they’re exposed and recanted. Nobody likes being lied to.
Many of these captive media organs are engaging in a campaign against “disinformation” (as a ruse to resume government social media censorship), and this can be used to the advantage of people trying to rescue friends and family from the cult. Explaining in detail how the captive media reliably lies on behalf of the military-industrial-complex, the intelligence community and Big Pharma can bring them out as it has brought hundreds of millions of others out of the captive media matrix already.
Brussels further damages European industry by approving 15th sanctions package on Russia
By Ahmed Adel | December 17, 2024
The Council of the European Union announced the approval of the 15th round of sanctions against Russia on December 16. Clearly, by imposing a new package of sanctions, the EU is willing to continue destroying its own industries by persisting on a policy of economic warfare despite the boomerang effects.
“This package of sanctions is part of our response to weaken Russia’s war machine and those who are enabling this war, also including Chinese companies. It shows the unity of EU member states in our continued support to Ukraine,” said Kaja Kallas, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
“Our immediate priority is to put Ukraine in the strongest possible position. We will stand by the Ukrainian people on all fronts: humanitarian, economic, political, diplomatic and military. There can be no doubt that Ukraine will win,” she added.
The new package includes, in particular, a list of personal sanctions against 54 individuals and 30 organizations that, according to the Council’s announcement, are “responsible for actions undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.”
The restrictions are intended to “address the circumvention of EU sanctions through targeting” Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” and weaken the country’s military industry.
Specifically, 52 third-country vessels were sanctioned, which the bloc claims are involved in oil imports from Russia, the delivery of war material to this country, and/or “the transport of stolen Ukrainian grain.”
The new economic restrictions also target Russian defence companies, chemical plants, and civilian airlines. For the first time, sanctions are fully applied to several Chinese entities for cooperating with Russia.
Since the start of the special military operation in Ukraine on 24 February 2024, the EU has adopted numerous restrictive measures against Russia. According to the Castellum.AI database, more than 19,500 individual and sectoral sanctions have been triggered against Russia since the start of the military operation.
However, despite Russia becoming the most sanctioned country in the world, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the 22nd Congress of the United Russia Party that the Russian economy continues to develop despite the unprecedented Western sanctions.
“Russia is developing, the economy is growing and this is amid sanctions, literally unprecedented in world history, against the background of gross interference and pressure on the part of the governing elites of some countries,” the president said on December 14, adding that foreign blackmail and attempts to stop Moscow will come to nothing.
“Russia is confident, it is conscious of its righteousness and its strength, and this is why all objectives set for the short and long term will certainly be met,” Putin said.
The Russian president’s comments followed the EU’s announcement on December 11 that member states had agreed to the 15th EU sanctions package against Russia. Now, even as European companies more openly express their interest in returning to the Russian market, the EU acts against the interests of citizens and the business community alike as prices escalate and the cost of living gets out of hand.
Moscow has repeatedly stated that the country will stand up to the pressure of sanctions that the West began imposing on Russia several years ago and continues to intensify because they lack the courage to admit the failure of such punitive measures.
Rising costs, driven partly by a rejection of Russian energy, are causing Europe to lose its global competitive advantage. Although Europe has maintained energy supply security, prices on the European market are now much higher than before. Some analysts predict a further rise in energy prices and the danger this poses to the European industry.
It is worth remembering that current gas prices in the European Union are almost five times higher than those in the United States. As a September report on European competitiveness points out, EU companies continue to face electricity prices between two and three times higher than the US.
A separate study by the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Deutsche Industrie und Handelskammer or DIHK) finds that high energy costs and a lack of reliable supplies are holding back industrial production, while “the risk of deindustrialization,” according to Siegfried Russwurm, chief executive of the industrial conglomerate Thyssenkrupp, “continues to increase.”
The energy crisis and the resulting economic recession in Europe are partly due to the EU’s refusal to accept cheap and reliable energy supplies from Russia. With these economically suicidal measures, Brussels wanted to force Moscow into capitulation. However, Russia has reoriented its export flows, particularly towards Asia.
Meanwhile, European buyers have been forced to purchase energy sources from alternative suppliers at higher prices, which obviously affected the competitiveness of European producers and hit the continent’s major economies. In effect, the anti-Russia sanctions have boomeranged, but Europe continues to insist on this economically suicidal policy.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
Calls in Slovakia for referendum on lifting Russia sanctions
RT | December 17, 2024
Two Slovak political parties have organized a conference to promote calls for a referendum on lifting sanctions against Russia, and have collected more than 160,000 signatures for a petition.
The initiative was organized by the left-wing Party of Slovak Revival and the right-wing Homeland Party, which held an event in Bratislava on Monday, attended by former justice minister Stefan Harabin, as well as representatives of the NGO Free Zone and the Association of Slovak Intellectuals.
Speaking at the event, Harabin described relations with Russia as “an existential question,” adding that, without Moscow’s support, Slovakia “may not preserve our statehood.” He spoke out against what he called “provoking the Russians with sanctions,” adding that these restrictions violate the law.
He also pointed out that the sanctions were harming the national economy. “Almost a million Slovaks live below the poverty line or in poverty. At the same time, sanctions are introduced, and we import the same Russian gas, but at a price four times higher. And people have nothing to eat. What kind of representatives of the state are these?” he asked, referring to the Slovak government.
According to Pavol Slota, the leader of the Homeland Party, more than 160,000 people have signed a petition saying “Russia is not my enemy.” “Let’s stop the anti-Russian sanctions together, Slovaks FORWARD!!” he wrote on Facebook.
The petition calls for a referendum to be held, posing the question: “Do you agree that the Slovak Republic should not apply sanctions against the Russian Federation, which harm Slovak citizens, tradesmen and entrepreneurs?” At least 350,000 signatures are needed for a referendum to be held.
Slota described the petition as “a civic action,” while blasting mainstream media for what he claimed were attempts to downplay the idea. “I believe that there is still a sufficient number of sane people in Slovakia,” he said.
Under far-right Prime Minister Robert Fico, Slovakia has been critical of the Western approach to the Ukraine conflict, cutting off state military aid to Kiev. He has also repeatedly urged the EU to drop restrictions on Russia, insisting that the bloc must resume dialogue with Moscow once the conflict is over.
How Does Western Media Try to Defame Calin Georgescu?
Calin Georgescu, running as an independent candidate for president, speaks to media in Bucharest, Romania, Oct. 1, 2024.
By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 13.12.2024
Amid uncertainty surrounding Romania’s botched presidential elections, Western media has launched an information campaign against independent candidate Calin Georgescu, who earlier made it to the country’s presidential runoff.
His progress, however, was annulled by the country’s constitutional court, which accused Georgescu of money laundering and being “Moscow’s man” – allegations he denies.
How does Western media paint the 62-year-old politician?
- The Financial Times : Romania shocked the world by voting for “a pro-Putin TikTok star” and “an outsider with ultranationalist views who was polling poorly just weeks before the election.”
- The BBC: Georgescu is “a figure from the extreme fringe of Romanian politics.”
- Sky News: He “has emerged from obscurity to top the polls in Romania’s presidential election. But the Anglophile and Trump supporter is also his country’s most divisive figure for decades.”
- AP : “A self-professed Donald Trump supporter”, Georgescu remained “a little-known entity until just weeks ago.”
- France 24: “The pro-Russian outsider candidate”.
- The Week : The “Putin of Romania” and “the EU and NATO’s worst nightmare.”
Romania held its presidential election on November 24, with Georgescu winning the first round with 22.94% of the votes. The leader of the liberal Save Romania Union, Elena Lasconi, who favors the partnership with NATO and the US, came second with 19.18%.
The second round of elections was scheduled for December 8. However, on December 6, the Constitutional Court ruled to cancel the results of the first round, paving the way for a rerun. The Romanian government must now set the date of a new presidential vote. Both Georgescu and Lasconi criticized the ruling.
Georgescu earlier told Western media that he had spent “zero” on his TikTok campaign and had “zero” ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he praised as “a patriot and a leader”.
The country’s opposition parties and politicians slammed the court’s decision as anti-democratic. Georgescu, for his part, insisted that the ruling “is more than a legal controversy” and that “it is basically a formalized coup d’état.”
Can Europe be saved?
Professor Glenn Diesen interviewed by Dimitri Lascaris
Glenn Diesen | December 11, 2024
I was interviewed by Dimitri Lascaris about the future of Europe. I argue that Europe’s decline derives from its inability to adjust to a multipolar international system. Europe can become one of several centres of power by pursuing collective bargaining power based on common interests, diversifying economic partnerships to avoid excessive dependence on the US, and overcoming the Cold War legacy of zero-sum bloc politics.
The Europeans have done the exact opposite. The European security architecture has been built on the premise that expanding a military alliance ever closer to Russian borders would create peace and stability. Relations with Russia have subsequently collapsed and Europe is losing a costly proxy war against the world’s largest nuclear power. Countries in the shared neighbourhood (Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova) are destabilised and their democracy undermined to ensure pro-West/anti-Russia governments take power. These deeply divided societies have become the battleground for drawing new dividing lines in the new Cold War.
European economies are deindustrialising as they cut themselves off from the Russian market, and are also pressured by the US to decouple from the Chinese market. The US Inflation Reduction Act offers subsidies to what remains of struggling European industries if they relocate to the US. Excessive reliance on the US means that Europe cannot even criticise the US for destroying its energy infrastructure after the attack on Nord Stream. After centuries of a Europe-centric international system, the Europeans have not realised that they have been demoted from a subject to an object of security.
Governments that do not represent national interests will eventually be swept away, yet the political elites become increasingly authoritarian to keep their power. In France and Germany, their political opposition is pushed aside with undemocratic means. Hungary and Slovakia are punished by the EU for failing to fall in line. The election results in Romania were overturned after the electorate did not vote for the right candidate.
The continent desperately needs course correction, yet power structure and ideology prevent necessary changes from being implemented. More aggressive means to control the narrative also result in declining freedom of speech.
EU has failed to cut energy ties with Russia – commissioner
RT | December 12, 2024
The EU has failed to overcome its dependence on Russian energy, and needs a new plan to wean itself off Moscow’s supplies, the bloc’s new energy chief told Politico on Thursday.
In his first interview since taking the post, Dan Jorgensen highlighted the growth in Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) purchases.
The share of Russian LNG on the EU market reached 20% this year, according to the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators, despite Brussels’ pledge to stop consuming Russian fuel by 2027.
“It’s obvious to everybody that something new needs to happen because… now it’s beginning to go in the wrong direction,” the EU Energy commissioner said, while pledging to present “a tangible roadmap that will include efficient tools and means for us to solve the remaining part of the problem.”
The new measures will target “gas primarily, but also oil and nuclear” and will be formulated by mid-March, Jorgensen said, noting that five EU countries still rely on Russia for nuclear fuel.
The EU declared its intention to end its dependence on Russian energy supplies following the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022. Supplies of higher-cost US fuel have replaced much of the cheap pipeline gas that was previously delivered by Russia.
However, efforts have stalled in recent months, and the EU continues to buy billions of euros’ worth of Russian gas each month. In 2024, the bloc is expected to import 10% more LNG from Russia than in 2023, according to energy analytics firm Kpler.
Politico noted, however, that any plan to sever energy ties with Russia in the next few years would be strongly opposed by EU members that are still heavily reliant the imports, particularly Hungary and Slovakia, whose leaders Viktor Orban and Robert Fico have resisted energy sanctions on Russia.
Jorgensen’s proposal is also likely to come just weeks after a long-term contract for Russian gas transit via Ukraine is set to expire, on December 31. The EU still receives around 5% of its gas from Russia via Ukraine’s gas transit network, according to the latest data.
Last month, Bloomberg warned of an imminent energy crisis in Western and Central Europe due to the latest US sanctions against Russia’s Gazprombank, the primary bank for energy-related transactions. The outlet said that rapidly depleting gas reserves and potential supply cuts from Russia threaten to exacerbate an already difficult situation.
Merkel Testing Public Opinion With Recent Praise of Russian Gas, German Politician Suggests
Sputnik – 12.12.2024
The head of the German Council for Constitution and Sovereignty, Ralph Niemeyer commented on national politics in the light of governmental crisis.
Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s recent remarks about the benefits of past gas supplies from Russia could have been an attempt to test public opinion on the possibility of resuming such supplies under a future government involving the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the head of the German Council for Constitution and Sovereignty, Ralph Niemeyer, told Sputnik.
Merkel said on Tuesday that she did not consider the years-long gas imports from Russia to Germany a mistake, noting that the arrangement was mutually beneficial.
“It is possible [that the statement was a test of public opinion]. A good quality of Friedrich Merz [CDU leader and chancellor candidate] is pragmatism. If he sees no other way forward, he quickly changes his approach,” Niemeyer said.
Merz could pragmatically disregard earlier promises to Volodymyr Zelensky and work to rebuild relations with Russia, he added.
The German government collapsed in early November after Chancellor Scholz fired Finance Minister Christian Lindner, the Free Democratic Party (FDP) leader, citing his unwillingness to greenlight new proposals for the 2025 budget and more aid for Ukraine.
As a result of the government split, February 23 has been set as the potential date for a snap general election. Scholz will submit a written request for a vote of confidence to parliament on December 11, with a vote to be scheduled for December 16.
If Scholz survives the vote of confidence, he will enter coalition talks with rival parties in a bid to prop up his minority government, which consists of the Social Democrats and the Greens. This scenario is considered unlikely due to a near-universal agreement in parliament on the need to hold an early election.
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On Herd Mentality
By Jeb Smith | April 14, 2026
I no longer trust “we the people,” because of the powers influencing them. Media and government schooling form their general ideas on reality and governance. Therefore, it’s not a case of the voter choosing the politicians. Instead, the system is conditioning and conforming the voter to the authorities’ desires.
In democracies, the people are kept occupied working and paying taxes, too busy to acquire information outside the approved sources. You will find they know and care far more about the next iPhone than political philosophy. Of those who hold some interest, 95% just toe the party line, holding the same opinion as the primary media source they listen to. They lack both the desire and time to expand their horizons.
Media’s purpose is to conform people’s thought to a preferred goal, which is why Republican and Democratic voters both firmly hold their parties’ general stances, reciting the same talking points. The people do not originate ideas; their thoughts are fed to them by the media so they can consume, digest, and parrot back whatever they are served. When it comes to politics, we rarely think for ourselves. We are told what to think.
Watch PBS, MSNBC and read your local newspaper for six months, and you will receive a particular view and understanding of the world. Then listen to The Mike Church Show, The Blaze, and The Daily Wire, and you will get not just another perspective but a whole different world of facts and events. The world people believe they live in can be entirely different depending on their news sources.
We enjoy seeing the enemy humiliated, which describes why those engulfed in politics love their preferred media sources; they keep returning for more like a drug addict. Networks ensure their “experts” align with the worldview they and their audience desire. The people who watch PBS, BBC, and so forth expect a specific perspective to be presented. Fox News watchers demand the same. In doing this, we both encourage and assure we are misled.
In their book Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government, professors Christopher H. Achen and Larry M. Bartels argue, based on substantial research, that voters do not decide the party platform and agenda. Instead, the parties control the “ideologies” of the voters. When the party the voter identifies with changes its position, the individuals also change theirs. They discovered the individual would quickly adopt the views of their group; they will ignore or change their own opinions over time to fit in with the collective they identify with. Achen and Bartels wrote “group memberships largely drove policy views, not vice versa.” … continue
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