It’s Christmas again. And Jesus is still under the rubble In Gaza (Just like last year).
He’s on an operating table There Having his infant arms and legs Sawed off Without anesthesia. Screaming for his Already dismembered mother Who’s been blown away By the U.S. and Israel. He’ll never kiss her again Or feel her warm embrace.
All but forgotten By holiday revelers With mindless “Merry Christmases!!”
Meanwhile Zionists weaponize the Bible So the slaughter might continue. Christians do the same Singing maudlin carols They don’t understand And buying silly trinkets In Wal-Mart. As if God were Santa Claus, A billionaire, Or a racist killer.
Worse still: As if God were A genocidal Amerikan!
It’s as if Yeshua were not Piss poor And homeless at birth Considered by imperialists As no more than an “animal” Among stable asses and oxen, The son of a disgraced Unwed teenage mother, An underpaid construction worker, A drunken friend of prostitutes Houseless as an adult The sworn enemy Of the Jewish power establishment And the rich That wanted that child From nowheresville Slaughtered.
(Good Christians don't like people like that)
As if Yeshua were just another Palestinian street rat, And not An unwelcome refugee in Egypt, A terrorist in Roman eyes, Their inmate on death row, A victim of torture And capital punishment.
“Good riddance,” The Romans said Just like us.
And the whole world Wasn’t watching then either. Few noticed Or cared.
But should we open our eyes We’d see a Yeshua So much more Than that.
He came to serve the poor. He said. God’s kingdom would be theirs So would the entire earth. Not Elon’s or Gates’ (Luke 6:24) Or Amerika’s Who’s blindness and arrogance Deserves eternal damnation Rather than the accolades The world bestows on Such fools Along with Herod and Pilate Anas and Caiaphas.
______
The pastor of Bethlehem’s Christmas Church said Something like that In his own Christmas sermon This year Just like the one Few noticed When he said it Last year.
Here’s his Xmas creche
Here’s Pope Francis with his Jesus In a keffiyeh-lined crib:
This year Listen To these holy men And to Yeshua’s silenced voice In the Sacred Land Of Palestine.
Once again, The real Christmas Story Is unfolding There Before our very eyes.
Last week at least 137 Russians were killed at the Crocus rock concert outside of Moscow. Untold numbers were wounded, some remaining in critical condition. ISIS K has claimed responsibility.
However, do you know who’s truly responsible according to “Democracy Now” (DN)?
“Putin!”
That’s the takeaway the show’s audience was left with at the end of today’s program (3/25/24).
The presentation said little about the attack itself, much less about its impact on the Russian people. Nothing at all about how or by whom the attack was planned. Nothing but denials about Ukraine, and not even a mention of possible U.S. involvement.
Instead, it was all about “Putin” (never “President Putin” or “Mr. Putin,” only a disdainful “Putin.”)
Accordingly, DN centralized interviews with two anti-Kremlin guests whose evident intention it was to blame the whole tragedy on the Russian president. The guests were Nina Khrushcheva, Professor of international affairs at the New School, and Moscow correspondent of The New Yorker, Joshua Yaffa. According to both:
The attack represents a major failure of Putin and his security apparatus.
It was the result of longstanding Russian mistreatment of the country’s substantial Muslim population.
The United States had responsibly and generously warned the Kremlin about the impending attack.
However, its paranoid president chose to ignore the warnings referring to them as “blackmail.”
Moreover, with zero evidence, only the Russian president’s “paranoia” has made him accuse Ukraine of being involved.
Furthermore, It’s a mistake to jump to the conclusion that the perpetrators of the attack were attempting an escape to Ukraine, since their route was interrupted by Russian police 140 miles from that supposed destination.
After all, Putin’s interests are not in protecting the Russian people, but only his own authoritarian regime that has been responsible for the assassination of Alexi Navalny and has imprisoned more people than were incarcerated under previous Soviet leaders.
Shockingly, when they appeared in court, those arrested for the crime bore marks of torture.
And of course, Russia’s (already week’s long) attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure is an attempt to divert attention from Putin’s own failures.
I found all that extremely disappointing – especially since (to her credit) Amy Goodman’s coverage of world events does not usually follow the direction mandated by U.S. propaganda. However, in this case, it clearly did.
Instead of the usual denunciations of “Putin” it would have been much more informative to investigate the actual perpetrators of last week’s massacre. Ex-CIA personnel such as Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson could have helped with that. So could an interview with Scott Ritter (see below). Together or separately, they might have contextualized the horrific event by pointing out:
Victoria Nuland’s cryptic statement about “nasty surprises” in store for Russia in its near future.
The Russian president’s un-paranoid reasons for suspecting U.S. involvement in the attack given longstanding U.S connections with ISIS in Afghanistan, Syria, and elsewhere to wage war specifically against Russia.
A long history of U.S. sponsorship of terrorist attacks on Russia including its recent destruction of the Nord Stream Pipeline.
John Kirby’s strange premature disavowal of Ukrainian responsibility for the massacre before allowing any time whatsoever for investigation. (This was like the immediate indictment of “Putin” for the death of Alexi Navalny and for that of Yevgeny Prigozhin before their corpses were even cold.)
The attack’s convenient (for the west) and distracting effect in the wake of Mr. Putin’s recent landslide victory in a presidential election that (according to non-Russian sources) witnessed a voter turnout of 70% and a vote 87% for Mr. Putin.
In any case, here’s what Russian expert and former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter had to say about the Crocus tragedy:
The attack indeed represents a puzzling failure on the part of President Putin’s security apparatus. It has much to answer for.
However, that’s far from the point that needs highlighting – viz., the event’s perpetrators and possible connections to Russia’s avowed enemies, Ukraine, and the United States.
The attack’s attribution to Muslim terrorists also provides reason to doubt such jihadist identification since the killers untypically accepted money for their crime and did not choose “martyrdom” rather than surrender in its aftermath.
On March 7th (well before the Russian elections) the United States did indeed issue a warning to U.S. residents in Russia about impending terrorist attacks and the advisability of staying away from large gatherings such as concerts.
The Russians “know everything” about the attack and the destination of its fleeing perpetrators.
Principal sources of official information are the captured cell phones of the fugitives.
Additionally, their phone conversations were intercepted in real time as they fled towards the Ukrainian border.
Both sources also contain incriminating information such as videos made while casing the crime site just before Russia’s presidential elections.
Such evidence suggests that the mass shooting was planned to disrupt that process, but that heavy security surrounding it forced postponement of the crime.
Phone information has also allowed authorities to track down the terrorist cell in Moscow that provided logistical support for their comrades.
All those arrested are currently divulging much more information that will soon come to light.
The lesson to be drawn from all this is one of extreme caution. Putin is not the issue here. Possible connection with Ukraine and the CIA is.
And regardless of what we might think of Scott Ritter’s analysis, it signals the complications of the questions at hand, the importance of not jumping to conclusions and of asking the right questions.
Propaganda, fake news, changing the subject, and gaslighting are everywhere. Even “Democracy Now,” even Amy Goodman are not immune from disseminating Russophobia. They too can be fooled by the Grand Wurlitzer of U.S. propaganda voiced by characters such as Khrushcheva, and Jaffa.
The lesson here (as always) is to focus on the heart of the matter, don’t allow misdirection of attention; retain constant suspicion of anything our government tells you. They’re all liars. Ex-CIA director Mike Pompeo put it best when he said as much.
Watching the news this morning on “Democracy Now” (DN) I couldn’t help feeling outraged, humiliated, and taken for a fool.
I mean, think about what’s happening in Haiti, Honduras, at our southern border, and in Gaza.
In each of those cases, the repeated refrain from Amy Goodman’s guests was that the U.S. is majorly responsible for the disasters in question. All of them are marked either by State Department regime changes, support of drug dealers, and/or by U.S.-backed slaughters that beggar description.
But to my point here: in each of the cases just mentioned, the Biden administration and its predecessors have shown complete contempt for our ability to remember, think, or exhibit any sense of morality. Our leaders are evidently convinced that we’re all like them complete idiots without a trace of humanity or moral compass.
And perhaps they’re right because of constant brainwashing by our ahistorical schooling and unrelenting mainstream media (MSM) propaganda. I mean, which of us really cares about the history behind U.S. interventions in Haiti, Honduras, Gaza, or at the border in Tijuana?
Which of us really cares about learning our own history?
Haiti
Begin with Haiti.
There we’re supposed to scratch our heads wondering why the country — the first in the world to be run by former slaves – is so out of control.
Why is it apparently run by “gangs?”
DN’s guest, Haitian American scholar Jemima Pierre, explains why.
It’s because in 2004, the Clinton administration regime-changed the country’s first elected president, Jean Bertrand Aristide – a former Catholic priest and liberation theologian.
Since then, the State Department has assisted in the complete destruction of democracy in the country. According to Professor Pierre, the country had 7000 elected representatives in 2004. Thanks to U.S. interference in the name of “democracy,” it now has NONE (Zero, 0).
And right now, the United States gives its unquestioning support to Ariel Henry an unelected “president” who succeeded President Jovenel Moise who was assassinated in 2021.
You can’t understand any of that, Professor Pierre explained, if you don’t start your thinking with U.S. interference in Haitian politics in 2004 – and (I would add) since the Haitian revolution of 1791.
Bottom line: The U.S. is responsible for Haiti’s problems. We’re the main troublemakers there – and (I’ll add) virtually everywhere in the world.
Honduras
“We” did something similar in Honduras.
There, according to DN, “we” completely supported yet another regime change, under Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The operation took place in 2014.
From then until two years ago Washington supported the presidency of Juan Orlando Hernandez who was well known as the head of a crime family of drug dealers. According to DN guest Dana Frank (professor of history emerita at the University of California, Santa Cruz) the Hernandez family was “legitimated and celebrated” by multiple U.S. administrations. Meanwhile its corrupt narco-regime created widespread havoc in Honduras and misery for ordinary people there.
Now (over the objections of the Biden administration) the Southern District of New York has succeeded in bringing Juan Orlando Hernandez to justice. He was convicted of cocaine trafficking on Friday after a two-week trial. He now faces life imprisonment OVER THE OBJECTIONS OF THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION!
Bottom line: “Our” government supports drug dealers! They’ve been doing it for decades.
Border Problems
Do you think any of what I’ve just mentioned has something to do with “American” concern about migration problems?
You overthrow elected governments in “our backyard” by military coups or by application of sanctions aimed at making life miserable for ordinary people (to incentivize them to rebellion or revolution).
You replace duly elected bodies with corrupt criminals including drug dealers interested only in lining their own pockets and those of the country’s elite.
The latter flourish.
Meanwhile, the poor are miserable and seek exit from intolerable situations.
Then we’re left wondering why asylum seekers leave home and cross borders to where it’s safer and more promising.
Bottom line: All of this has characterized U.S. policy towards Venezuela, Nicaragua, and other countries in our hemisphere. That’s why Americans are prone to chant “Mr. Trump, put up that wall!”
Gaza
And finally, there’s the worst expression of contempt for our intelligence. It’s unfolding in Gaza.
Who can believe it?
We’re supposed to accept “policy” that on one hand continues to send 5000-pound bombs to Israel to genocide Gazan women and children.
Then on the other hand our resulting outrage is supposed to be mollified by a few pallets of rancid food dropped on the victims who survive the bombing.
In fact, Genocide Joe even promises to build some kind of pier (taking months to erect) where the same rancid products will accumulate only to be inspected and (not) delivered by the IOF (Israeli Occupation Forces). It will be no better than the situation of the trucks of food that have been waiting for months on the Egyptian border.
What? How is that supposed to help? Do they think we’re completely stupid? Are we? You figure it out.
Bottom Line: Benjamin Netanyahu has more political power in the U.S. than senile, weak, and evidently insanely dumb Genocide Joe.
Vladimir Putin has done it again. Just as he did with Yevgeny Prigozhin, he’s murdered another political adversary. This time it’s his “most prominent political opponent,” Alexy Navalny.
That’s the IMMEDIATE conclusion UNIVERSALLY drawn and promulgated by the political establishment and mainstream media in the collective west.
Such unanimity especially in the United States with its record of political assassinations and brutal political imprisonments raises suspicions that we might not be getting the full story.
That’s especially true when one contrasts western handwringing over Navalny’s fate with its indifference to the torture of imprisoned Australian citizen Julian Assange and to the State Department’s lack of concern about the behind bars death of American citizen Gonzalo Lira in Kiev.
So, before we join in premature conclusions, let’s look at the other side of Navalny’s death especially in the light of what we know about Assange and Lira.
Rush to Judgment
First, consider the immediate response to news that Navalny had died. Virtually EVERYONE from Genocide Joe Biden to Hillary Clinton and the Secretary General of Amnesty International claimed certainty that the man had been murdered “by Putin.”
This was even the general thrust of a “Democracy Now” interview with Russia expert Masha Gessen. The latter had authored an article in TheNew Yorker article entitled “The Death of Alexy Navalny Putin’s Most Formidable Political Opponent.” For Gessen there is “no doubt” Navalny was killed – again “by Putin.”
One wonders where such certainty can possibly come from simply on the report of Navalny’s death. After all, people die in U.S. prisons and migrant detention cells all the time. Such rush to judgment seems to fly in the face of the foundational legal principle that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. Nevertheless, before ANY examination of evidence, before any autopsy, before any independent investigation, the case is already closed.
The message to Americans: we too should have “no doubt.” Just as we were getting to know a more humanized Vladimir Putin (thanks to Tucker Carlson’s recent interview) the cruel autocrat has struck again. Whatever “official” autopsies might conclude, Putin is surely guilty and can never be proven innocent. (After all, who could ever believe Russian investigators?)
Moreover, Alexy Navalny is universally portrayed as a heroic advocate of democracy who has always opposed the “autocracy” of Vladimir Putin. He was a “freedom fighter” in the face of anti-democratic oppression.
True, Gessen admits that Navalny had previously been an ultra-nationalist often photographed with Nazi paraphernalia. And yes, he had also been anti-immigrant and Islamophobic. He was a guns-right advocate too who at one point called for the execution of Muslims and for the extermination of “cockroaches” like Russians living in Georgia.
But according to Gessen all of that was in the distant past. Since his arrest and apparently while behind bars, he had undergone a conversion. In fact, like many jailhouse converts, the imprisoned Navalny had become a student of religions. He had even transformed into an advocate of Muslims and their right to access to The Holy Koran while serving their time.
However, even if we grant the man’s conversion, the question remains why would Putin do such a thing? Navalny was already in prison serving a 19- year sentence. He was out of the public eye. He represented no political threat to the Russian leader who by all accounts enjoys high popularity with Russians and will easily win next month’s presidential elections.
In other words, Navalny’s “murder” could do nothing but make Putin look bad, expose him to criticism from his opponents, and hurt him at the ballot box. As ex-CIA officer, Ray McGovern puts it: Navalny “was of no consequence in terms of Putin’s reelection prospects. He had no real following there (i.e. in Russia) except among a certain group of folks that didn’t amount to much.”
The Other Navalny
But who really was Alexy Navalny? According to Scott Ritter, Navalny was a CIA agent “straight up.” He came to political awareness during the Boris Yeltsin years (1991-1999) before Putin’s reforms when Russia was extremely corrupt. Like so many young Russians of that era, he shared a strong admiration of the West that even bordered on rejection of his own Russian identity.
As such, Navalny was recognized by the CIA as a “future leader.” They sent him to the World Fellows Program at Yale University whose connections to the CIA (according to Ritter) are well known. There they groomed the man as a CIA-funded political opponent of Vladimir Putin.
In other words, Navalny was a player in a process that routinely funds so-called non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Russia and elsewhere for purposes of bringing about regime change. Put still otherwise, the NGOs in question were fronts for U.S. and British intelligence agencies who after the advent of Vladimir Putin took on the task of bringing down the Russian president.
This made Navalny in the eyes of Russian law a traitor guilty of treason. As everywhere else, there are laws in Russia against such things.
Assange & Lira
Ray McGovern, an ex-CIA analyst, goes further still. He contrasts the hand wringing about the Navalny affair with the lack of such distress over Julian Assange, the Australian founder and editor of Wikileaks. McGovern’s concern is relevant because this week, the 20th and 21st of February, a final hearing will be held in London to determine Assange’s fate.
Julian Assange, of course, faces extradition to the United States to face a 175-year prison sentence for releasing to the public evidence of U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. For five years, he has been held without charge in a 6’X12’ cell in London’s infamous Belmarsh Prison with Great Britain’s worst rapists, murderers, and terrorists. Before that he spent seven years as an asylum seeker in London’s Ecuadorian embassy.
And this despite appeals for his release by the Australian Parliament itself, and despite the CIA’s breach of basic client-lawyer privilege by listening in and recording confidential conferences between Assange and his legal representatives – a fact that alone should disqualify any further legal processes against this Australian citizen.
Where’s the outcry, McGovern says about Assange’s imprisonment and torture? And doesn’t that prominent foreign journalist’s mistreatment deprive the U.S. of any moral authority to criticize, let alone issue demands about the Navalny case?
And then there’s the issue of the apparent murder of American citizen Gonzalo Lira in one of Kiev’s prisons. Lira was charged with suspicion of expressing subversive opinions about Ukraine’s war with Russia. According to Tucker Carlson, “the Biden administration clearly supported his imprisonment and torture. Several weeks ago, we spoke to his father, who predicted his son would be killed.”
I ask my readers: Have you even heard of Gonzalo Lira? If not, don’t worry, you’re in good company. Genocide Joe’s administration acts as if it never heard of him either.
Conclusion
The conclusion here is not that Vladimir Putin was not ultimately responsible for the death of Alexy Navalny. That remains to be seen. Instead, the proper conclusions include the following:
It is far too premature to conclude anything.
Such prejudice flies in the face of basic legal assumptions about innocence and guilt.
Alexy Navalny was probably not a freedom fighter.
In fact, there is clear indication that he was a white supremacist and anti-immigrant ultra-nationalist.
He also seems to have been an Islamophobe, an agent of the CIA, and a traitor to his country.
Like all countries, Russia has laws about such matters.
In the light of its treatment of Julian Assange and Gonzalo Lira, the United States has zero moral authority to posture as a champion of prisoners’ rights, freedom of speech, rule of law, prosecutorial rectitude, or extra-judicial assassinations.
O yes, and then there’s all that business about Jeffrey Epstein‘s death in prison . ..
Last week, Christian church leaders in the city of Bethlehem announced the cancellation of traditional Christmas festivities in the place traditionally associated with the Jesus’ birth.
And this for at least two obvious reasons. For one, the genocidal killings by colonial settlers in Palestine’s occupied West Bank have made it impossible for tourists to come to Bethlehem.
For another, Palestinian residents of Bethlehem have themselves cancelled festivities in an act of solidarity with their brothers and sisters in Gaza victimized by Apartheid Zionists and their partners in genocide, the United States of America.
But there’s a third reason as well – a theological one that needs highlighting this Christmas weekend.
The motive was explained last Friday on Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now.” Ms. Goodman began with a clip of the Reverend Isaac Munther, a Lutheran pastor in Bethlehem.
Standing before a nativity scene with the figure of Jesus in a keffiyeh surrounded by rubble, Rev. Munther said:
“Christmas is a ray of light and hope from the heart of pain and suffering. Christmas is the radiance of life from the heart of destruction and death. In Gaza, God is under the rubble. He is in the operating room. If Christ were to be born today, he would be born under the rubble. I invite you to see the image of Jesus in every child killed and pulled from under the rubble, in every child struggling for life in destroyed hospitals, in every child in incubators. Christmas celebrations are canceled this year, but Christmas itself is not and will not be canceled, for our hope cannot be canceled.”
Elaborating on that theme, Reverend Mitri Raheb, the president of Bethlehem’s Dar al-Kalima University, offered an explanation that echoed the liberation theology perspective on Palestine that my wife and I encountered in the summer of 2006, when we visited the Sabeel Liberation Theology Center in Jerusalem.
Dr. Raheb is the author of a book with a revealing title, Decolonizing Palestine: the Land, the People, the Bible. Here’s what he said:
“The Christmas story actually is a Palestinian story, par excellence. It talks about a family in Nazareth, in the north of Palestine, that is ordered by an imperial decree of the Romans to evacuate to Bethlehem, to go there and register. And this is exactly what our people in Gaza has been experiencing these 75 days. It talks about Mary, the pregnant woman, on the run, exactly like 50,000 women in Gaza who are actually displaced. Jesus was born actually as a refugee. There was no place at the inn for him to be born, so he was put in a manger. And this is exactly what also the kids that are coming to life these days in Gaza are experiencing. You know, most of the hospitals are damaged, out of service, and so there is no delivery places for all of these pregnant women in Gaza. And then you have the bloodthirsty Herod that ordered to kill the kids in Bethlehem to stay in power. And in Gaza, over 8,000 kids, they have been murdered for Netanyahu to stay in power.
And you have this message that the angels declared here, “Glory to God in the highest, peace on Earth,” which was actually a critique of the empire, because glory belongs to the Almighty and not to the mighty. And the peace that Jesus came to proclaim is not the peace, the Pax Romana, the peace that is based on subjugation and military operation, but on human dignity, equality and justice. And this is actually what we call for. And I have to say I find it really a shame that in this season, where every church hears these words, “peace on Earth,” that the United States is vetoing even a ceasefire. It’s a shame.”
This is International Women’s Day. And what was once my favorite news program, Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now” (DN) was full of relevant coverage. One of the featured pieces was entitled “Stand up for Afghan Women”: U.N. Calls Afghanistan World’s Most Repressive Country for Women, Girls.” The piece lamented the sad situation plaguing Afghanistan’s female population.
By now the story has become familiar: women required to wear hijabs, girls excluded from schools, and both forbidden to drive cars, work outside the home, or to travel without male accompaniment.
And all of this decried by the United States government which is, we’re told, the champion of women’s rights not only in Afghanistan but throughout the Muslim world.
The problem however with that picture is that the last part is false. That is, far from being the champion of women’s rights in Afghanistan, the United States is the one ultimately responsible for their oppression in that sad country and elsewhere.
In effect, the U.S. is the creator of the Taliban which in 1992 overthrew the Russian-sponsored socialist government that beginning in 1973 freed Afghan women from the repressive restrictions just referenced.
More specifically, supported by the Soviet Union, the so-called “Saur Revolution” improved immeasurably the lives of Afghan women. It introduced progressive policies including land reform and mass literacy projects that benefitted both genders. Child marriage was abolished. Female dress codes were eliminated, freeing women to wear western clothing if desired.
Under socialism, formerly closed employment opportunities for women were opened in both the public and private sectors. Women were allowed to enter schools at all levels. They became university professors, government officials, doctors, nurses, lawyers, judges, parliamentarians and more. In record time, women comprised 50% of the government’s bureaucracy, 70% of the country’s teachers, and 40% of its doctors. Sixty percent of the faculty at Kabul University (KU) were females. For the first time in Afghanistan’s history, women comprised most of the KU student body.
All of that was reversed by United States now familiar divide-and-conquer regime change strategies – this time in Afghanistan. Alarmed by socialism’s advance, Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski saw that Saur progressive reforms though popular in urban centers were not well-received in rural tribal areas. So, he decided to support the landlords, warlords, and religious mullahs there to work regime change in Kabul.
The assistance included the Carter administration’s arming and training Islamic fundamentalists (the Mujahidin) beginning in 1979.
That movement eventually drove from power Afghanistan’s progressive socialists (along with their Russian supporters) with their women-friendly policies. Eventually too, the Mujahidin morphed into the Taliban.
20 years of U.S. occupation and bombing of Afghanistan
With the expressed intent of preventing the Taliban from returning to power
But leading directly to the deaths of more than 250,000 Afghans
With the same number of deaths caused indirectly
Including (between 2015 and 2019 alone) more than 26,000 Afghan children
Along with the creation of over 2.2 million refugees.
We also know about:
Last year’s chaotic U.S. departure from the country
The immediate return of the Taliban to power
And the subsequent application of U.S. sanctions
That are currently causing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis that affects women and their children much more than the Taliban officials.
Everybody knows, of course, that all of this is intentional. The real target of U.S. sanctions is not the Taliban government. No, it’s all part of our government’s familiar regime change strategy aimed at making the lives of ordinary people (including women and children) so miserable that they will arise and overthrow their government.
We shouldn’t be fooled by any of it. Instead, (especially on this International Women’s Day), we should face up to the fact that the United States government doesn’t give a damn about women’s rights either abroad or at home.
At home, its Christian Taliban wing led by its SCOTUS Catholics, Donald Trumps, Ron DeSantises, and Marjorie Taylor Greenes would entirely control women’s bodies and their reproductive rights from the exclusion of sex education to the outlawing of contraception and abortion. Remember that for more than 50 years, “America” has found itself unable to officially recognize that under the Constitution, women have the same rights as men.
In summary, while portraying Muslim-majority countries as inherently misogynistic, U.S. government propaganda and even news sources like “Democracy Now” ignore the fact that the United States was responsible for overthrowing Afghanistan’s progressive governments attempting to improve the lives of its women.
In other words, history shows that our government is as misogynistic as the forces it sponsors.
Recently, on “Democracy Now,” Amy Goodman interviewed a Yale history professor, Timothy Snyder, about the Ukraine War. He was commenting on his New Yorkerarticle “The War in Ukraine is a Colonial War.”
That was his argument: As if we had to guess Putin’s end game in Ukraine, the good professor opined that it probably is to annex Ukraine and afterwards who knows what other country. Putin’s an imperialist, Snyder charged. Like Hitler, he’s after land and soil.
The colonizer must therefore be stopped, Dr. Snyder concluded, and be brought by force of arms to acknowledge Russia’s total defeat. Turning just war theory on its head, Snyder’s point came across as: war is the first resort; negotiation comes only after your enemy has been militarily defeated and is forced to accept the winner’s terms without reservation.
That kind of support for what has prevailed in America as “the official story,” especially coming from a fellow academic who should know better, struck a fraying nerve within me. I mean, to my understanding, it’s not the function of academics (nor for that matter, of news media such as “Democracy Now”) to lend support to the approved narrative. It is rather to test the received account against documented reality.
So, I decided to find out once and for all (1) who Vladimir Putin is, (2) the detailed background of the Ukraine conflict, and (3) what the Russian president’s intention might be in his “special military operation.”
No need, I found, to speculate on any of that. It’s all quite well recorded – for instance (1) in Oliver Stone’s four interviews (each an hour long) with the Russian president, (2) in the film “Ukraine on Fire” (counterpointed by “Winter on Fire”), and (3) in Putin’s two long pre-war speeches (one delivered last February 21st, the other just after on February 24th).
Reviewing that material quite carefully has convinced me that as a national leader, Putin stands head and shoulders above any others I can think of. His reasons for initiating his “special operation” are defensible historically, legally, and according to U.S. precedent.
Putin as Statesman
Before mounting the “Putin Bad” bandwagon, be sure to view Oliver Stone’s “The Putin Interviews” on Showtime. They’re the product of 12 conversations between Stone and Mr. Putin over two and a half years between July 2015 and February 2017.
I found the interviews revealing a man who is difficult to dislike. He is charming and humorous. He drives his own car, is a judo enthusiast, plays hockey, and rides horses. He describes himself as a “cautious optimist” who believes, he says, “there is always hope until the day they put you in the ground.”
Born into a working-class family in 1952, his father was wounded in what Russians call “The Great Patriotic War,” when the United States and the USSR were allies against Nazi Germany.
From an early age, young Vladimir studied judo, whose practice, he says, summarizes his theory of life: be flexible and disciplined; think ahead. (For political leaders, he adds, that means planning 25 to 50 years into the future).
Movies and books made Putin, who studied law in the university, an admirer of the KGB as a patriotic organization. He joined up and was assigned to East Germany. Life there, he remembers, was not dismal, but “frozen in the 1950s.”
Then came Mikhail Gorbachev’s presidency (March 1990 – Dec. 25, 1991). Gorbachev’s “reforms” made everything fall apart. (Putin does not particularly admire him.) Social programs were destroyed. Millions lost their previously guaranteed rights and fell into poverty. Oligarchs criminally seized property belonging to the Russian people and became instant billionaires. Overnight, 25 million people lost their nationality and became displaced.
Though opposed to communism, Lenin, and Stalin, Putin recalls that succession of events “one of the greatest catastrophes of the 20th century.” The country moved towards civil war.
Gorbachev was succeeded by Boris Yeltsin (in office 1991-1999). Before the latter’s resignation, he unexpectedly chose the relatively unknown Vladimir Putin as acting prime minister. Later that year (2000), Putin was elected president with 53% of the vote. He recalls his major accomplishments as bringing the oligarchs more under control and cutting the poverty rate by two-thirds.
As a result, Putin was re-elected in 2004 with 70% of the votes cast. Russia’s constitution forbade his running again in 2008, so he served as prime minister under President Dmitry Medvedev (2008-2012). Putin ran again for president in 20012 and won with 63% of the vote.
As for charges that on his watch, Russia’s system is “authoritarian,” Putin calls for historical perspective. He points out that Russia was a monarchy for 1000 years. Then came what he refers to as “the so-called revolution of 1917” followed by dictatorship under Stalin and his successors until the 1990s. In view of such history, it is unreasonable, Putin observes, to expect Russia’s attempts at democracy to rise to the levels of the United States, Germany, or France in such a short time.
Though a survivor of five assassination attempts and criticized mercilessly by the West’s politicians and press, Putin refuses to respond in kind. For instance, Arizona senator John McCain called him “a killer, butcher, thug, and KGB colonel.” Putin replies, “We could make similar comparisons, but due to the level of our political culture, we abstain from extreme statements.” Instead, Putin consistently refers to the U.S. government at “our friends,” and “our partners,”
“Actually,” he adds, “I admire Senator McCain, because of his patriotism.”
Ukraine
Of course, Oliver Stone’s “Putin Interviews” came long before the present crisis in Ukraine. So, for perspective here, let me turn to President Putin’s speech of February 21, 2022, where he laid out the history of the conflict, as well as to his speech of February 24th, the day his “special military operation” began.
Both addresses were substantial, each lasting more than an hour. Commentary shows that few in the West have read the speeches. (The earlier-referenced film “Ukraine on Fire,” also contains information mirroring what the Russian president said.)
Here’s the way Vladimir Putin tells the story:
The conflict in Ukraine takes place between people who share a history, culture, and spiritual space. They are comrades, colleagues, friends, relatives, and family members.
Ukraine was always part of Russia. Its modern form as a state was created by the Bolsheviks.
Both the Russian Empire and the USSR always found it difficult to control their colonies and federated states.
Beginning in 1922, Stalin did so by complete repression.
In the 1980s, the nationalist ambitions of local elites resurfaced, supported by some factions of the Communist Party.
By 1989, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) conceded sovereignty to its federated states (including Ukraine).
Russia was then pillaged by its own oligarchs, while it continued to economically support states like Ukraine.
Ukraine suffered similar pillage at the hands of its oligarchs who began allying themselves with western powers.
Those same Ukrainian officials allowed Russophobe Neo-Nazi nationalists to arise who supported terrorists in Chechnya and laid new claims to Russian territories.
They terrorized Russian-speaking Ukrainians including politicians, activists, and journalists, even burning alive peaceful protestors in Odessa.
All these events, eventually led to the Maidan Coup (2014) supported by the United States with $1million per day.
With corrupt leaders in charge, Ukraine is now run from western capitals as a neo-colony.
As such, the west threatens to introduce nuclear weapons into Ukraine while flooding it with conventional arms and conducting constant military exercises aimed at Russia.
Ukraine’s application for NATO membership represents a further direct threat to Russia’s national security.
Russia has appealed for dialog, peace talks, and negotiations, but its appeals have been ignored by the United States which refuses to countenance the existence of any independent country, especially one as large as Russia.
Accords between Russia and Ukraine that have been signed (an apparent reference to the Minsk agreements) have been transgressed by Kyiv.
This leaves Moscow with no other choice but to take measures to protect its own interests.
It will begin by coming to the rescue of the Donbass region which has been under constant attack by Kyiv since 2014 (with more than 14,000 lives lost).
Russia therefore recognizes the sovereignty of Donetsk and Lugansk as “People’s Republics.”
Putin’s Justifications
Reviewing the bullet points just noted along with additional justifications advanced three days later in a similar speech, show that at least according to U.S. logic, Vladimir Putin’s action in Ukraine is completely justified.
Together with additional information garnered from the film “Ukraine on Fire,” Putin’s own words show that he clearly recognizes that Ukraine was given sovereignty by the USSR in 1989. He has no intention (pace, Professor Snyder) of refusing to recognize the country’s existence or of colonizing or occupying it militarily.
As affirmed in his speech of February 24th, the Russian president states his focused intention as protecting his country from a clear, present, and illegal threat represented by NATO’s expansion right up to Russia’s borders despite:
Ukraine’s constitutional prohibition against the establishment of foreign military bases on the country’s soil
The accords of the Organization for Security Interests in Europe (OSCE)
As well as the de-escalating provisions of two Minsk Accords.
Since appeals for negotiation and dialog have been ignored, Putin’s only option, he claims, is military self-defense and rescue of the citizens of Donbass who have appealed to Russia for help in a war which has already taken many thousands of lives.
With all this in mind, Putin declares his intention in Ukraine as restricted to the following goals:
Protecting Donetsk and Luhansk from what he sees as genocide perpetrated there by the Ukrainian Nazi Azov regiment largely responsible for Kyiv’s aggression in Donbass since 2014
Bringing to justice those responsible for the massacres
Denazifying and destroying the Ukrainian army in the process.
Again, those goals are clearly limited. The Russian president completely denies an intention or ability to occupy Ukraine which is a sovereign state.
Moreover, all of this is in accord with U.S. doctrine and policy. For instance, just last week when the Solomon Islands (7000 miles distant from the U.S.) announced an intention of signing a security agreement with China, the U.S. threatened military response, on grounds that such agreement threatened its national interests.
Case closed.
Conclusion
According to the word’s definition, an “apologist” is “a person who offers an argument in defense of something controversial.” It refers to one who defends another from what s/he considers an unjust attack. In the name of even handedness, respect for documentary evidence, and historical fact, that’s the role I’ve attempted to assume here.
Considering such factors , I personally have concluded that Alexander Putin has been defamed. He is no Hitler. He is not insane. He is acting according to the “rules based order” long established and acted upon by U.S. presidents in a whole series of wars that have contravened international law and led to the needless deaths of millions of innocent people.
That is to say that Putin no worse than any U.S. president you care to name. As Chomsky points out (see video above), all of them have committed war crimes far worse than Putin’s – mostly without attempting the detailed justifications found in the Russian president’s extended statements. America’s posture towards the Solomon Islands makes the point.
That’s why I’ve turned into a Putin apologist who hopes for Russia’s success in resisting U.S. aggression at its border that (according to Professor Snyder’s logic) will force Biden and NATO to the negotiation table. But don’t hold your breath. There are still Ukrainian proxies available for cannon fodder.
Yesterday, on “Democracy Now,” Amy Goodman reported good news for the poor countries of the Global South. In the news headline portion of her show , she said, “Cuba has pledged to donate 200 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine to low-income countries in the Global South. The move was announced at talks hosted by the Progressive International and was heralded as a possible ‘historic turning point’ in the pandemic.”
You’d think that the announcement would be welcomed and celebrated everywhere and be given at least as much press coverage as the one-day protests in Cuba reported so breathlessly last November 15th. However, no such general celebration occurred. Even on “Democracy Now,” the story went undeveloped beyond the just-quoted headline. Meanwhile, in contrast to its hysteria over Cuban protests last fall, the U.S. government itself has been totally silent about this potentially game changing development.
Nevertheless, according to international health experts, Cuba’s achievement could make vaccinations much more available for example to 1.3 billion Africans whose continent has seen only 7% of its population receive even a single vaccination dose. (And this in contrast to 70% vaccination rates in richer countries.)
According to reports even on CNBC’s online source, the five Cuban vaccines in question:
Are a uniquely Cuban development among the former colonies
Have been administered in three doses to a higher percentage (86%) of Cuba’s 11 million people than in most of the world’s richest countries
Are not dependent on expensive mRNA technology using instead a “subunit protein” variety – like the Novavax vaccine
Are cheap to produce
Require no special refrigeration
Enjoy 90% effectiveness against all strains of COVID 19
Will have no patent restrictions on their recipes shared with low-income countries
Will be made available to them virtually at cost
Are a tribute to Cuba’s legendarily efficient health care system
Currently, Cuba’s prestigious biotech industry is awaiting approval for its vaccine developments from the World Health Organization. That approval is expected early this year. According to Helen Yaffee of the University of Glasgow, “. . . many countries and populations in the global south see the Cuban vaccine as their best hope for getting vaccinated by 2025.”
As for cost and distribution issues, John Kirk, professor of Latin American Studies at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia added, “The objective of Cuba is not to make a fast buck, unlike the multinational drug corporations, but rather to keep the planet healthy.”
But in news cycles dominated by pharmaceutical corporations that refuse to waive intellectual property rights to their largely publicly funded products, such contrasting humanitarian consciousness goes mostly underpublicized and by such silence, denied.
Denial like that prevails despite the appeals for sharing vaccine recipes by the World Health Organization itself supported by civil society groups, trade unions, former world leaders, international medical charities, Nobel laureates and human rights organizations.
Part of the reparations due Cuba for 60 years of economic embargo and for silence about its achievements is to at last recognize its socialism as a force for global humanitarianism much more beneficial to the world than international capitalism.
Welcome to Episode 11 of “A Course in Miracles for Social Justice Activists.” I’m your host, Mike Rivage-Seul. And today we’ll examine together Part I, Lesson 3 of The Course’s Workbook for Students.
In the first part of the Workbook, we’ve been deconstructing our illusory understandings of the world. We’ve been imagining ourselves as residents in Plato’s Cave completely deceived by our culture, its educational system, by its advertising, its politicians, priests, and publicists. It’s all illusion.
In line with that insight, today’s lesson reads: “I do not understand anything I see in this room, [on this street, from this window, in this place].”
For purposes of this podcast and its concern with social justice, the lesson’s central idea might better be phrased, “As a captive in my culture’s version of Plato’s Cave, I do not understand anything I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place.]”
Or: as a beneficiary of a system that is white supremacist, capitalist, imperialist, and patriarchal, I understand nothing at all about the world.
The truth of this last phrasing was especially illustrated this morning on Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now” and its coverage of the 26th meeting of COP (Congress of Parties) on climate change. The meeting began today in Glasgow, Scotland.
Global South guests on this morning’s “Democracy Now” described it in scathing terms invisible to most of us who are even taking the trouble to notice that COP 26 is taking place. “Democracy Now’s” guests spoke of:
White Supremacy: They described the Glasgow gathering as “the whitest and the most privileged climate summit ever, with thousands from the Global South unable to attend because of lack of access to COVID vaccines and visa issues.”
Dysfunctional Capitalism: They added that the exclusion of participants from the Global South was intentional to silence their voices highly critical of specifically capitalist schemes such as carbon trading and “Net Zero Carbon Emissions” that will permit the world’s biggest “free market” polluters (mainly the United States) to continue business as usual. As a result the Paris Climate Accord goal of keeping global temperatures below 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, will not only be missed, but global temperatures will reach the catastrophic level of 3 degrees above those pre-industrial measures.
Neo-Colonial Imperialism: The capitalist world’s business as usual includes ongoing subsidization of the fossil fuel industry and unabated plans for expanded oil drilling and pipelines across lands belonging to indigenous peoples. Unchanged business plans means that Africa’s 1.5 billion people who are responsible for about 3% of global warming will continue bear a vastly disproportionate share of climate change’s ravages. Those consequences will predictably turn the continent’s largely agrarian populations into impoverished climate refugees. The refugees will in turn be xenophobically excluded from seeking asylum in countries like our own.
Patriarchal Rule: Even though 60-80% of the non-industrialized world’s farmers are women, the ones making the decisions that will adversely affect their livelihoods are men like Joe Biden, Boris Johnson, and the predominantly male CEOs of fossil fuel corporations.
In the light of all of this, Lesson 3 might well read, “I do not understand anything at all.” I don’t even know how white supremacy works because (as a white person) it works for me. I do not how capitalism works, because (as an American) it benefits me. For the same reason, I do not know how imperialism or patriarchy work.
In Plato’s Cave, I know nothing about climate change.
But guess who does know about climate change and how the world works for whites, capitalists, imperialists, and men. It’s those would-be delegates excluded from the Glasgow conference. It’s those spokespersons from the Global South who know the ins and outs of the real effects of carbon trading and “Net Zero” policies. It’s those poor women farmers made to bear the brunt of climate chaos.
It’s the poor who according to Christian faith (and Jesus’ voice in A Course in Miracles) constitute the site of God’s revelation of what’s wrong with the world and what to do about it. Indirectly, A Course in Miracles is asking us to listen to them – to the voices of the excluded who resonate with the voice of Jesus. The historical Jesus was one of them.
Think about those people from the Global South today as you repeat (almost as a mantram) the central expression of Lesson 3. As you focus randomly on whatever your eyes light upon, say “I do not understand anything I see in this room, [on this street, from this window, in this place].”
As you watch television, or read the paper say, “As a beneficiary of a system that is white supremacist, capitalist, imperialist, and patriarchal, I understand nothing at all about the world.”
To access previous postings in this series on A Course in Miracles, please go to my podcast site.
Recently Amy Goodman’s “Democracy Now” explored “The Case for People’s Vaccines.”
While those interviewed by Ms. Goodman called for early and affordable access to inoculations in the Global South, no mention was made of perhaps the most promising source of such therapies. The neglected source was not only promising, but implicitly revealed the swindle represented by Big Pharma’s anticipated exorbitant prices for Covid-19 vaccines.
It may surprise readers to know that the source in question is Cuba.
Cuba’s Achievement
In fact, Cuba is the first nation in Latin America to receive authorization from the World Health Organization (WHO) to perform officially sanctioned tests of the four vaccines it now has under development. Those trials have already completed their clinical stages. Promising results so far have Cubans looking forward to completing the (cost free) inoculation of its entire population of 12 million by the end of March 2021.
The vaccines under trial are named Soberana 01, Soberana 02, Abdala (CIGB66) and Mambisa (CIGB669). None of them is dependent for its preservation on super-cold temperatures.
Mambisa is worthy of special note, since as a nasal spray, it requires no needles, but responds locally to the specifically respiratory nature of Covid-19.
Failure to report such developments even on “Democracy Now” illustrates the complicity of our mainstream media in shunning any news from socialist nations like Cuba that might possibly illustrate the superior ability of their economies to deliver high quality, no-cost healthcare to citizens even during a worldwide pandemic. Moreover, absent the profit motive, Cuba will predictably deliver its vaccines to its neighbors at vastly cheaper prices than its capitalist counterparts.
Cuba’s Vaccine History
This prediction is based on the fact that Cuba has long been a supplier of vaccines and doctors not only to the Global South, but to countries such as Italy during the height of Covid-19’s first wave. Additionally, with its unequaled ratio of doctors to citizens, the island nation’s response to the pandemic has effectively limited documented coronavirus infections despite supply problems caused by the continued U.S. embargo of the island.
All four developments (the superabundance of doctors, the relative control of Covid-19, Cuba’s research capacities, and the export of medical care to other countries) result from the foresight and vision of Fidel Castro, the revered father of his country. In the early 1980s he sparked initiation of a vigorous homegrown biotech sector – largely to cope with the U.S. embargo’s persistent attempts to deprive the island of medical supplies.
The result was the emergence of 20 research centers and 32 companies employing 20,000 people under the umbrella of the state-run BioCubaFarma Corporation. Recently, spokespersons connected with the corporation tweeted, “The #CubanVaccineCOVID19 is dedicated to the sower of dreams: Fidel. Our tribute to the one who believed in the strength and future of #CubanScience.”
BioCubaFarma produces 8 of the 12 vaccines Cuba uses to immunize its own population against diseases such as measles and polio. Cuba has also exported hundreds of millions of vaccine doses to more than 40 countries (e.g. to deal with meningitis and hepatitis B).
Conclusion
All of this represents just one more illustration of socialism’s comparative efficiency in the face of crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. Even a poor blockaded country like Cuba can respond to an unprecedented crisis such as the coronavirus without holding sick people hostage to the confiscatory demands of privatized natural monopolies like Big Pharma. The latter’s claims to mammoth profits based upon (largely government-funded) costly research are simply ideological cover for overweening corporate greed that none of us should stand for.
People’s vaccines can be produced at warp speed and at low cost – despite news blackouts even on “Democracy Now.”
About Things That Matter 