| I listened to part of the Meidas Touch broadcast with Mike Madrid - cofounder of the Lincoln Project - concerning the role of media’s activist networks to combat disinfo, asking the question: “How do we take down dictators?" I find the Meidas commentaries on domestic issues to be quite interesting and mostly on the mark. However, this interview reveals some particular biases stemming from the particular perspective that most US citizens have of themselves in relation to the world outside the US. One of the angles the US promotes for itself are the ‘values’ of the “free world” and “democracy” and the promotion of “democracy and freedom” abroad. As an outsider - only relatively speaking as Canada is part and parcel of the US empire and is fully integrated within it - the problems with this are rather large. Neither the US (nor Canada) are democracies. Corporations have way too much power, the elected representatives are far too willing to satisfy their demands. The electoral system itself is hardly democratic with the strange amalgam of primaries, the electoral college, gerrymandering, and the ongoing mass media circus of continual election cycles. The lack of most social support systems does not speak of a country that is democratic especially as most polls show that the majority of people want more social support. The ‘demos’, the people, are not in control; big money and big corporations are. In foreign affairs the US has never been democratic as its main form of democracy promotion has been through the CIA, NSA, NED, USAID and other organizations including, again, the power of money through the World Bank, the IMF, BIS, SWIFT, and the position of the US$ as the global reserve currency based essentially on oil and its control. Certainly there is a lot of ‘freedom’ in the US, but it is a freedom based mostly on a consumer oriented society seeking immediate gratification without much long term thought about - well, much at all - lots of entertainment, lots of infotainment, lots of distractions, and lots of consumption. Touted as the land of opportunity in which all can rise to the top, it is equally true - if not more so - that people are also free to fall to the bottom where the social safety nets are not there to assist them to recover. Meidas discussed the “absurd big lie” without saying what it is and why it is absurd. It is a methodology of argument that more or less says, well, we do not need to explain it as it is so absurd and you the viewer are to accept it as fact. For Trump, there is one major big lie of a stolen election; the example used for Putin is the “denazification” of Ukraine. There is a strong minority of the politicians and a strong minority of the military who publicly tie themselves into the Banderite view of the world. Many of the “heroes” in Azovstal were some of the more exceptional of these “warriors” displaying through tattoos, arm patches, flags and other paraphernalia that they bought into the nazi ideology (whether it is true “Nazi”, as with Germany is highly arguable, but the trend is the same). Apart from the freedom and democracy aspects of the argument, another weakness of US’s pundit arguments usually centers around the vilification of some ‘other’ who becomes the focus of whatever the mass media can manufacture consent for as part of the large corporate interests, in this case Putin. Did Putin start the current ground war? For sure, and under international law definitions (which the US normally disregards, more below) it is a war crime. Madrid almost correctly stated that the war started in 2014 when Russia, sorry - Putin, invaded Crimea. But then you extend it back for 15 years to 2008, the start of the recession and the era of enormous corporate bailouts: did Putin do that as well? Okay, sorry for that bit of sarcasm, but somehow it fits in with the argument that Putin “exploited the weakness of a free society”. There is no discussion of Victoria “Fuck the EU” Nuland, the role of the CIA/NSA in Ukraine, the billions of dollars spent attempting to turn the country toward the EU/NATO and away from Russia, nor the democratic votes by Crimea to leave Ukraine in the 1990s. According to Madrid, Putin funded the NRA, funded the anti-vaccine movement, encouraged the racial strife, creating a country at war with each other, as democracy “grinds to a halt”. This is the first time I have heard any of this funding stuff and I look at a large number of websites from the left to the right and no one has mentioned it so far that, I have seen. I would need to see the sources which perhaps you could provide in the comment section under the posted video. The real error here is not so much the vague funding misinformation (?) but the vilification of the ‘other’ and a focus too much on one personality. There are others in the Russian Duma who are far more strident for much more military action than Putin has put into play (at best reports about 15 percent of Russia’s overall military). Madrid also parrots the MSM - ironically - in saying that Russia is being defeated and demoralized by the war. Certain activist networks on the other side of the fence and even a few on ‘our’ side of the fence indicate that Russia is making steady “grinding” (to use your own vocabulary) progress on the military front. Yes, Ukraine has put up a very strong defense with a large network of fortified positions along the Luhansk and Donetsk line of contact, trained and advised by NATO operatives, having had eight years to literally dig in. The US has already won the propaganda war; not doing so well in the military war. Ukraine is literally losing ground, and Putin’s popularity, even though given an end run by Madrid, is quite strong. One of the best propaganda sources for Russia is Biden himself, along with Blinken and Austin calling for regime change and the destruction of Russia as a sovereign identity. That plays well in Russia. One last bit about freedom and democracy and international relations. Surely Meidas Touch must be familiar with the over 800 (some sources say 1000, a matter of definition I presume) US military bases in over 150 countries around the world, a military empire that has created havoc wherever it has touched down. Look at the US's own historical record as empire: indigenous genocide, attack on Mexico, false flag coup for Hawaii, the sinking of the Maine allowing Hearst to manufacture consent for the Spanish War, on on through many others: Operation Gladio/Paperclip, Guatemala and Iran coups (1953), Allende overthrow in Chile, most Latin American governments overthrown at one time or another through US interference, almost always for corporate rights and financial hegemony, Vietnam and on into more current stuff in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Yugoslavia and others. So to go back a step to Putin’s money affecting the US, well perhaps it did a bit, but look at US society. Born of violence, born of racism, created for corporate interests more than citizen’s freedom, divided by a huge civil war, continuing on throughout its history with that racism, violence, and corporate money buying elections. Trump did not cause this, nor did Putin. Did they exacerbate it? Trump certainly brought it to a boil, but because the US needs a qualified villain for its foreign policy, I would hesitate to place a lot of blame on Putin as to why the US is becoming one of Trump’s infamous “shithole” countries. So Meidas, keep up the good effort, but try to be more careful with looking at the world as though the US is the indispensable exceptional nation - it is not. Ask a few more pointed questions particularly regarding foreign policy. As for your desire for independent activist networks to be the force for creating/strengthening global democracy, I wish you well. Unfortunately you are up against huge corporate financial power, an opponent much larger than Putin - or Trump. |