Tuesday September 26, 2023
As is well known, the Mackinder ‘Pivot of History’ doctrine (1904) of ‘he who controls the Asian heartland controls the world’ was cemented into the US zeitgeist as the unassailable doctrine that a united Heartland – which might challenge the US – must never be allowed. To which Brzezinski, President Carter’s National Security Adviser, added that the Ukraine, by virtue of its divided national identities, entwined in old complexities, should be seen as the hinge around which heartland power revolved: ‘Absent Ukraine, Russia would never become the heartland power; but with Ukraine, Russia can and would’, Brzezinski averred.
Well, that was the idea – to mobilise fierce Ukrainian ultranationalism versus a weak Russia, and put them to fight each other. But the evolution of the ‘Brzezinski doctrine’ – quite surprisingly – segued into a series of western mythological errors: First, that Russia was easily defeated in Afghanistan, by a few lightly armed jihadists (not true). Secondly, that the Soviet Union and its satellites were overthrown by ‘Revolutions from Below’ (also not true). And thirdly, that a powerful US Security-State ‘Leviathan’ could ensure US hegemony (through mounting ‘Revolutions from Below’).
Brzezinski’s prime intent may originally have been to keep Russia and China divided from each other. But the Soviet Union’s sudden implosion (unrelated to Afghanistan) was crafted narratively to lend credence to Francis Fukuyama’s End of History and the Last Man meme. After the Cold War and the Soviet communist empire’s collapse, the American political, cultural and economic model was widely held to be the ‘Last Man Standing’.
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Monday September 25, 2023
In an interesting speech about the way US imperial aggression provokes violence around the world, antiwar commentator Scott Horton made reference to an April 2022 article from Yahoo News that had previously escaped my attention.
The article is titled “In closer ties to Ukraine, US officials long saw promise and peril,” and it features named and unnamed veterans of the US intelligence cartel saying that long before the February 2022 invasion they were fully aware that the US had “provoked” Russia in Ukraine and created a powderkeg situation that would likely lead to war.
“By last summer [meaning the summer of 2021], the baseline view of most US intelligence community analysts was that Russia felt sufficiently provoked over Ukraine that some unknown trigger could set off an attack by Moscow,” a former CIA official told Yahoo News’ Zach Dorfman, who adds, “(The CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.)”
Dorfman writes that initial support provided to Ukraine during the Obama administration had been “calibrated to avoid aggravating Moscow,” but that “partially spurred by Congress, as well as the Trump administration, which was more willing to be aggressive on weapon transfers to Kyiv, overt US military support for Ukraine grew over time — and with it the risk of a deadly Russian response, some CIA officials believed at the time.”
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Monday September 25, 2023
Former President Donald Trump infuriated many anti-abortion voters last week when he refused to commit to national abortion restrictions and seemed to blame them for Republican losses in the 2022 mid-term elections. Trump even criticized the six-week abortion ban signed by Florida Governor (and fellow Republican candidate) Ron DeSantis. So, not only is Trump balking at national restrictions but he is criticizing a state restriction. What are pro-life voters to do?
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Monday September 25, 2023
According to Politico, Speaker Kevin McCarthy has backtracked on his promise to Marjorie Taylor-Greene and other conservatives to keep the Ukraine money out of the "must-pass" defense bill. Will he even be able to bring a "stop-gap" spending bill to the Floor after infuriating the rebels? Also today...Nazis in Canada? Say it ain't so! And finally: Trump +10 nationally? Today on the Liberty Report...
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Friday September 22, 2023
We previously discussed the defunct Disinformation Governance Board and its controversial head Nina Jankowicz. After the outcry over the program, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas finally relented and disbanded the board while insisting that it was never about censoring opposing views. Jankowicz has sued over the portrayal of her views. Now, Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFPF) has exposed just how broad the scope of the censorship efforts were under the board in combatting “misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation (MDM). This range of authority in what the agency called the “MDM space,” included targeting views on racial justice and the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.
New documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests show that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) argued that the agency could regulate speech related to “the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, racial justice, US withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature of US support to Ukraine” as well as “irregular immigration.”
Those subjects stretch across much of the “space” used for political speech in the last few years.
Notably, within DHS, Jen Easterly, who heads the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, extended her agency’s mandate over critical infrastructure to include “our cognitive infrastructure.” The resulting censorship efforts included combating “malinformation” – described as information “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.” I testified earlier on this effort.
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Friday September 22, 2023
We are seeing the classic signs of the growing discontent within some key sectors of the military and intelligence bureaucracy over the Biden policy towards Ukraine (I will touch on those in a minute), but the Biden national security team continues to stridently insist insist it will back Ukraine to the bitter end. However, despite the tough talk, Biden continues to balk on sending some weapon systems that could transform the Special Military Operation into a full blown war with Russia.
I am posting the video of Jake Sullivan’s press conference today on Biden’s meeting with Zelensky to illustrate this point. It lasts about 30 minutes and is worth listening to both for what is said and what is not.
Let me start by explaining what I meant by “classic signs” that there no longer is consensus within the US national security agencies about what to do in Ukraine. Last week I wrote about the briefing DIA’s Director of Analysis provided to some key media outlets. He presented the Administration line dressed up as “DIA intelligence.” Today we have Sy Hersh’s latest report — Zelensky’s Bad Moment — that reveals there are important contrarian voices in the ranks of the CIA...
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Friday September 22, 2023
Allegations of sexual impropriety and abuse by comedian and podcaster Russell Brand by the British media prompted YouTube to demonetize the star’s popular channel on September 20. The Grayzone can now reveal that YouTube’s financial censorship of Brand is the result of an effort waged by a former British government minister who was responsible for London’s crackdown on dissent during the Covid-19 pandemic.
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Thursday September 21, 2023
Forget evidence, trials, or the presumption of innocence: for the UK Parliament It's "sentence first—verdict afterwards." Culture Committee Chair Caroline Dinenage sent letters to every platform commentator Russell Brand has appeared on to demand that he not be allowed to earn money from his work. Even though he has not been charged, much less convicted of a crime! Also today: Jan 6th "insurgents" were crawling with Feds. Finally: NATO dam cracks with Poland saying "hasta la vista" to Ukraine. Today on the Liberty Report...
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Thursday September 21, 2023
No sooner did the beggar Zelenskyy trek to New York to lecture the United Nations did the so-called Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces suspend Sarah (Michael) Ashton-Carillo.
You may recall Ashton-Carillo’s video a while back. In the video, the American trans in a bad blonde wig and a military green polo shirt threatened to unleash Nazi assassins against all who criticize USG involvement in the Ukraine war.
From Zerohedge today: "The controversial American transgender spokesperson for Ukraine's Territorial Defense Forces Sarah Ashton-Cirillo (born Michael Cirillo) has been suspended indefinitely by the Ukrainian military, also pending an investigation. According to an official Ukrainian military statement, Ashton-Cirillo's recent statements regarding "hunting down" dissidents and "propagandists" were not approved."
This is a public relations skit. Nazis, past and present, have long humiliated, attacked, tortured, and murdered political opponents. The problem with Ashton-Carillo is not his menacing threat. It’s a problem with timing. The Nazis not only want to kill men, women, and children in Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Crimea, and Russia, but also those of us opposed to USG and NATO efforts to collapse Russia and, in the process, start a nuclear war.
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Thursday September 21, 2023
Jacinda Ardern may no longer be Prime Minister of New Zealand, but she was back at the United Nations continuing her call for international censorship. Ardern is now one of the leading anti-free speech figures in the world and continues to draw support from political and academic establishments. In her latest attack on free speech, Ardean declared free speech as a virtual weapon of war. She is demanding that the world join her in battling free speech as part of its own war against “misinformation” and “disinformation.” Her views, of course, were not only enthusiastically embraced by authoritarian countries, but the government and academic elite.
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