18

Why Venezuela and Syria Cannot Fall

by Andre Vltchek


Despite tremendous hardship which the Venezuelan people are having to face, despite the sanctions and intimidation from abroad, President Nicolás Maduro has won a second six-year term.
Two weeks ago, at the Venezuelan embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, where I addressed several leaders of East African left-wing opposition, an acting Charge d’ Affaires, Jose Avila Torres, declared: “People of Venezuela are now facing similar situation as the Syrian people.”
True. Both nations, Venezuela and Syria, are separated by a tremendous geographical distance, but they are united by the same fate, same determination and courage.
During the Spanish Civil War, Czech anti-fascist fighters, volunteers in the International Brigades, used to say: “In Madrid we are fighting for Prague”. Madrid fell to Franco’s fascists in October 1939. Prague had been occupied by German troops several months earlier, in March 1939. It was the blindness and cowardice of the European leaders, as well as the support which the murderous fascist hordes received from populations of all corners of the continent, which led to one of the greatest tragedies in modern history – a tragedy which only ended on May 9, 1945, when the Soviet troops liberated Prague, defeating Nazi Germany and de facto saving the world.
More than 70 years later, the world is facing another calamity. The West, mentally unfit to peacefully end its several centuries long murderous reign over the planet – a reign that has already taken several hundreds of millions of human lives – is flexing its muscle and madly snapping in all directions, provoking, antagonizing and even directly attacking countries as far apart as North Korea (DPRK), China, Iran, Russia, Syria and Venezuela.
What is happening now is not called fascism or Nazism, but it clearly is precisely that, as the barbaric rule is based on a profound spite for non-Western human lives, on fanatical right-wing dogmas which are stinking of exceptionalism, and on the unbridled desire to control the world.
Many countries that refused to yield to brutal Western force were recently literally leveled with the ground, including Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq. In many other ones, the governments were overthrown by direct and indirect interventions, as well as deceit, as was the case in the mightiest country in Latin America – Brazil. Countless “color”, “umbrella” and other “revolutions” as well as “springs” have been sponsored by Washington, London and other Western capitals.
But the world is waking up, slowly but irreversibly, and the fight for survival of our human race has already begun.
Venezuela and Syria are, unquestionably, at the frontline of the struggle.
Against all odds, bleeding but heroically erect, they stand against the overwhelmingly mightier force, and refuse to give up.
“Here no one surrenders!” shouted Hugo Chavez, already balding from chemotherapy, dying of cancer which many in Latin America believe, was administered to him from the United States. His fist was clenched and heavy rain was falling on his face. Like this, died one of the greatest revolutionaries of our time. But his revolution survived, and is marching on!

*

I am well aware of the fact that many of my readers are from the West. Somehow, particularly in Europe, I cannot explain, anymore, what it really is to be a revolutionary. Recently I spoke at a big gathering of ‘progressive’ teachers, which took place in Scandinavia. I tried to fire them up, to explain to them what monstrous crimes the West has been committing all over the world, for centuries.
I tried and I failed. When the lights went on, I was drilled by hundreds of eyes. Yes, there was an applause, and many stood up in that fake cliché – a standing ovation. But I knew that our worlds were far apart.
What followed were pre-fabricated and shallow questions about human rights in China, about “Assad’s regime”, but nothing about the collective responsibility of people of the West.
To understand what goes on in Syria and in Venezuela, requires stepping out of the Western mindset. It cannot be understood by selfish minds that are only obsessed with sexuality and sexual orientation, and with self-interest.
There is something essential, something very basic and human that is taking place in both Syria and Venezuela. It is about human pride, about motherland, about love for justice and dreams, about a much better arrangement for the world. It is not petty, in fact it is huge, and even worth fighting and dying for.
In both places, the West miscalculated, as it clearly miscalculated in such ‘cases’ as Cuba, Russia, China, Iran, DPRK.
Patria no se vende!”, they have been saying in Cuba, for decades – “Fatherland is not for sale!”
Profit is not everything. Personal gain is not everything. Selfishness and tiny but inflated egos are not everything. Justice and dignity are much more. Human ideals are much more. To some people they are. Really, they are, trust me – no matter how unreal it may appear in the West.
Syria is bleeding, but it refused to surrender to the terrorism injected by the West and its allies. Aleppo was turned into a modern-day Stalingrad. At a tremendous cost, the city withstood all vicious assaults, it managed to reverse the course of the war, and as a result, it saved the country.
Venezuela, like Cuba in the early 90’s, found itself alone, abandoned, spat at and demonized. But it did not fall on its knees.
In Europe and North America, analyses of what is happening there have been made “logically” and “rationally”. Or have they, really?
Do people in the West really know what is like to be colonized? Do they know what the “Venezuelan opposition is”?
Do they know about the consistency of the terror being spread by the West, for centuries and all over Latin America, from such places like the Dominican Republic and Honduras, all the way down to Chile and Argentina?
No, they know nothing, or they know very little, like those Germans who were living right next to the extermination camps and after the war they claimed that they had no idea what that smoke coming up from the chimneys was all about.
There is hardly any country in Central or South America, whose government has not at least been overthrown once by the North, whenever it decided to work on behalf of its people.
And Brazil, last year, became the ‘latest edition’ of the nightmares, disinformation campaigns, ‘fake news’ and coups – being spread with ‘compliments’ from the North, through local ‘elites’.

*

You see, there is really no point of discussing too many issues with the ‘opposition’ in countries such as Venezuela, Cuba or Bolivia. What has to be said was already pronounced.
What goes on is not some academic discussion club, but a war; a real and brutal civil war.
I know the ‘opposition’ in South American countries, and I know the ‘elites’ there. Yes, of course I know many of my comrades, the revolutionaries, but I am also familiar with the ‘elites’.
Just to illustrate, let me recall a conversation I once had in Bolivia, with the son of a powerful right-wing senator, who doubled as a media magnate. In a slightly drunken state he kept repeating to me:

“We will soon kick the ass of that Indian shit [president of Bolivia, Evo Morales] … You think we care about money? We have plenty of money! We don’t care if we lose millions of dollars, even tens of millions! We will spread insecurity, uncertainty, fear, deficits and if we have to, even hunger… We’ll bleed those Indians to death!”

All this may sound ‘irrational’, even directly against their own capitalist gospel. But they don’t care about rationality, only about power. And their handlers from the North will compensate their losses, anyway.
There is no way to negotiate, to debate with these kinds of people. They are traitors, thieves and murderers.
For years and decades, they used the same strategy, betting on the soft-heartedness and humanism of their socialist opponents. They dragged progressive governments into endless and futile debates, then used their own as well as Western media to smear them. If it did not work, they choked their own economies, creating deficits, like in Chile before the 1973 Pinochet’s coup. If that did not work, they’d used terror – naked and merciless. And finally, as the last resort – direct Western interventions.
They are not in it for ‘democracy’ or even for some ‘free market’. They are serving their Western masters and their own feudalist interests.
To negotiate with them is to lose. It is identical with playing the game by their own rules. Because behind them is the entire Western propaganda, as well as financial and military machinery.
The only way to survive is to toughen up, to clench teeth, and to fight. As Cuba has been doing for decades, and yes, as Venezuela is doing now.
This approach does not look ‘lovely’; it is not always ‘neat’, but it is the only way forward, the only way for progress and revolution to survive.
Before Dilma got ‘impeached’ by the pro-Western bunch of corrupt freaks, I suggested in my essay that was censored by Counterpunch but published by dozens of other outlets world-wide, in many languages, that she should send tanks into the streets of Brasilia. I suggested that it was her duty, in the name of the people of Brazil, who voted for her, and who benefited greatly from the rule of her PT.
She did not do it, and I am almost certain that now she is regretting so. Her people are once again getting robbed; they are suffering. And the entire South America is, as a result, in disarray!

*

Corruption? Mismanagement? For decades and centuries, the people of Latin America were ruled and robbed by the corrupt bandits, who were using their continent as a milking cow, while living in the repulsive opulence of the Western aristocracy. All that was done, naturally, in the name of ‘democracy’, a total charade.
Venezuela is still there – people are rallying behind the government – in terrible pain and half-starving but rallying nevertheless. It is because for many people there, personal interests are secondary. What matters is their country, socialist ideology and the great South American fatherland. Patria grande.
It is impossible to explain. It is not rational, it is intuitive, deep, essential and human.
Those who have no ideology and ability to commit, will not understand. And, frankly, who cares if they will or not.
Hopefully, soon, both Brazil and Mexico – the two most populous nations in Latin America – will vote in new left-wing governments. Things will then change, will become much better, for Venezuela.
Until then, Caracas has to rely on its far-away but close comrades and friends, China, Iran and Russia, but also on its beautiful and brave sister – Cuba.
Evo Morales recently warned that the West is plotting a coup in Venezuela.
Maduro’s government has to survive another few months. Before Brazil is back, before Mexico joins.
It will be a tough, perhaps even bloody fight. But history is not made by weak compromises and capitulations. One cannot negotiate with Fascism. France tried, before WWII, and we all know the results.
The West and its fascism can only be fought, never appeased
When one defends his country, things can never be tidy and neat. There are no saints. Sainthood leads to defeat. Saints are born later, when victory is won and the nation can afford it.
Venezuela and Syria have to be supported and defended, by all means.
These wonderful people, Venezuelans and Syrians, are now bleeding, fighting for the entire non-Western and oppressed world. In Caracas and Damascus, people are struggling, battling and dying for Honduras and Iran, for Afghanistan and West Africa.
Their enemies can only be stopped by force.

*

In Scandinavia, a Syrian gusano, who lives in the West, who smears president Assad and gets fully compensated for it, challenged me, as well as the Syrian ‘regime’ and Iran, during the Q/A session. I said I refuse to discuss this with him, as even if we were to spend two hours shouting at each other, in public, we would never find any common ground. People like him began the war, and war they should get. I told him that he is definitely paid for his efforts and that the only way for us to settle this is ‘outside’, on the street.
Venezuela and Syria cannot fall. Too much is now at stake. Both countries are presently fighting something enormous and sinister – they are fighting against the entire Western imperialism. It is not just about some ‘opposition’, or even the treasonous elements in their societies.
This is much bigger. This is about the future, about the survival of humanity.
Billions of people in all parts of the world have been closely following the elections in the Bolivarian Republic. There, the people have voted. President Maduro won. He won again. Scarred, bruised, but he won. Once again, socialism defeated fascism. And long live Venezuela, damn it!

Originally published by New Eastern Outlook – NEO
Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He has covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. Three of his latest books are his tribute to “The Great October Socialist Revolution” a revolutionary novel “Aurora” and a bestselling work of political non-fiction: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” View his other books here. Watch Rwanda Gambit, his groundbreaking documentary about Rwanda and DRCongo and his film/dialogue with Noam Chomsky “On Western Terrorism”. Vltchek presently resides in East Asia and the Middle East, and continues to work around the world. He can be reached through his website and his Twitter.

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USAma Bin Laden
USAma Bin Laden
Jun 15, 2018 6:30 PM

The Americans specialize in state-sponsored terrorism disguised behind their national lies that their country represents (snicker) Freedom and Democracy.
America is guilty of covertly arming and sponsoring jihadist terrorism against Syria, while waging economic and political terrorism against Venezuela.
This is not only about oil, or money, or Israel, or even the dirty US Dollar reserve currency–although all these issues are significant factors in American behavior in those nations and indeed around the world.
Ultimately, Americans (and their vaunted “democratic” allies) are fundamentally driven by a Will to Power.
They simply cannot tolerate any nation defy its imperial rule and escape its bloodstained power over the world.
Call it Manifest Destiny. Call it the Pentagon’s Full Spectrum Dominance. Call it the “rules-based Liberal Democratic Order.” Call it the Free World.
But at base, it is raw, naked power that motivates the Americans and their Coalition of the Killing.
That is who they are–an existential threat of the first order.

vexarb
vexarb
Jun 16, 2018 10:19 AM

@USAma. In a nutshell. Like the teeshirt I saw on a Yankee boy out with his mother:
“Winners Make Points. Losers Make Excuses”.

Mulga Mumblebrain
Mulga Mumblebrain
Jun 18, 2018 9:30 AM

Thanatopolis DC’s one true religion is Death-worship and killing is the prime sacrament.

Big B
Big B
Jun 15, 2018 1:39 PM

I totally agree with Andre: Venezuela and Syria must not fall. Neither must Brazil, Argentina, Italy, “Turkey, Indonesia, Malaysia, and even India” (to quote Jack Rasmus).
They are all $$$$ vassals being controlled by the Fed and the G6.5 (or even G6 after the recent summit debacle?) central banks imperial hegemony. Their plight has been exacerbated by Powell’s recent rate rise: which is pulling money back into the $$$$. This is the direct result of former doctrinaire neoliberal policies (imposed on the People): allowing $$$$-denominated Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in to fund economic expansion; coupled with internal rate rises from the pro-Atlanticist controlled central banks.
https://jackrasmus.com/
Much to the chagrin of the de-dollarisation Creationists: the $$$$ is still King, and doing very well for itself …if you are a member of the upper one percent supra-sovereign Superclass, that is. This is at the expense of the Emerging Market Economies (EMEs: BRICS and BRICS+). Three of the core BRICS are under IMF supervised neoliberal reconstruction (Brazil, India, South Africa): which only really leaves Russia/China. They will save us by Yuanisation/Rubleisation; the gold standard; petroyuans and mixed hydrocarbon rubles …and opening their borders to $$$$-denominated FDI influx (and $$$$ flight capital outflux)?
Wait a second: didn’t I just say that was the way to become a $$$$ controlled vassal? But Russia/China are the hope of nations. How does this make any sense? Mulga et al, can you please explain?
I’m talking about the recent St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF): where Russia declared itself open for neoliberalisation. One other person scratching his head was Paul Craig Roberts: who would have given this address if asked. Short synopsis: why dafuq would Russia follow the exact neoliberal policies that destroyed the American economy (except for the upper one percent)? Why would they open themselves to potentially increased flight capital that has been draining their economy since 1992? Answers on a postcard to V V Putin; c/o the Kremlin.
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/05/25/americas-fifth-column-will-destroy-russia/
With Russia/China integrating into the neoliberal globalisation agenda, albeit on their own terms (although Mnuchin/Cohn seem to be dictating terms to China) …where does that leave the afflicted; dehumanised, and colonised People of the world? The revolution will have to be a Trotsky-like Permanent one? A unilateral uprising would be invaded and quashed. The chances of a coordinated multi-lateral Permanent Revolution taking over control of our central banks; issuing our own currency; paying off the foreign debt and telling the superclass pro-business central banks to fuck off …is small to zero: but I live in hope!
Then there is the current bio-energetic bottleneck that will extremise the financialisation, inequity, and polarise further the inequality. Maybe that will radicalise the People: even the bourgeois fake Left?
When we stop fantasising about the “sordid materialistic calculus” (thanks MM!): the real problem becomes clear – supra-sovereignty. We do not need a globalised, self-organised, integrated rentier-$$$$ economy ….controlled by licit ($$$$) and illicit (shadow banking Euro-$$$$$) trans-national FDI capital influx and (tax-free) flight capital outflux (into untraceable secrecy jurisdictions); coupled with BIS/Fed/G6.? central bank collu$ion. We could fund ourselves with local currency (debt or debt-free does not matter if we are repaying oursleves!); to create self-sovereign; autonomous; democratically confederalised; human scale community based intiatives …if we want? Only, this is the absolute opposite end of the spectrum that “pro-business” UN-WTO-World Bank Atlanticist globalisation offers. We will have to do it for the People, by the People …and Andre is right: it won’t be pretty. The alternative – and those who think that is Russia/China globalisation 2.0 are increasingly hoping against hope – is eternalised, vassalised indebtedness and permanent dehumanisation. I do not know about anyone else: but I have nothing to lose …I’m dead already in the globalised world to come ….and Putin or Xi can’t save me: or anyone else.

bevin
bevin
Jun 15, 2018 3:55 PM
Reply to  Big B

Are you sure that you are not battling a straw man ?
The view that you take of Russia and China is very similar to that of the imperialists- another version of “a plague on both of their houses” like Cliff’s ‘Neither Washington or Moscow’ .
Like those who, while no fans of the Soviet system supported most of Russia’s foreign policy-because it was in opposition to that of the aggressive empire, seeking hegemony- I find myself supporting all foci of resistance to the Empire.
The question of neo-liberal socio-economic policy is important only insofar as it weakens the societies which adopt these divisive and destructive measures. Nations like Venezuela, defending themselves against aggression depend upon the solidarity and strength of the masses- it is madness for a country under attack to deepen class divisions and subvert the well being of the population.
In fact Putin has learned that the prime necessity in Russia is to reverse the neo-liberal order introduced under Yeltsin- an order that was decimating the population and demoralising the armed forces.

manfromatlan
manfromatlan
Jun 15, 2018 5:49 PM
Reply to  bevin

Nevertheless makes important reference to Paul Craig Roberts thoughts; there’s a spilt in Russian economic thinking between the western influenced economists of the Central Bank and the nationalists. Russian PM Medvedev also was said to be of an ‘Atlanticist’ persuasion.
However, signs are that Putin’s moving away from neo-liberalism, as Roberts himself notes here https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/11/will-russia-reject-neoliberalism/

Big B
Big B
Jun 15, 2018 6:24 PM
Reply to  manfromatlan

Are problems in the space/time continuum? 🙂 I posted two recent articles from earlier this year (one above by PCR; and one below by the Saker) and you trump me with a two year old article?
Can either of you answer this question: if Russia is not neoliberal, why are they opening up to FDI?
There really only is one answer, is there not?

manfromatlan
manfromatlan
Jun 15, 2018 7:53 PM
Reply to  Big B

I like the Saker (as I like Putin) but here it seems he’s acknowledging the competing interests and institutional problems Russia inherited from the Yeltsin years and needs to work a balancing act. Which Putin does very well, and I don’t see any evidence he’s a neo-liberal because he didn’t do everything some would like. Saker:

So if Putin is so bad, why do I support him? Simply because at this point in time there is no alternative. And it’s not really that Putin is “bad” – but rather that he is a human being, not a miracle worker with a magic wand in his hands who can reform Russia simply by waving it and saying “abracadabra”. Especially not while Russia is at war with an Empire which threatens her very existence!

As to FDI and capital outflows/inflows, that’s just they have to do to allow Russia to massively invest in resource and infrastructure elsewhere, which suits its geo-political strategy.
I’m encouraged by moves away from the dollar and regional trade deals. Once the Russia-China nexus firms, hopefully Putin can improve the domestic situation. But yes, Putin DOES seem to invest in a “third way”, albeit with a uniquely Russian flavour,

Big B
Big B
Jun 15, 2018 9:14 PM
Reply to  manfromatlan

I pulled the direct quote from the Saker below: Putin is a neoliberal …end of. His economic advisors and the head of the Russian Central Bank are neoliberals. Russia is neoliberal: with ‘Russian characteristics’ …privatization, globalisation, and opening up to FDI are part of that. PCR argues cogently that this only favours the investors: Russia could, and should, create the ruble capital itself. Instead, it is borrowing $$$$ capital and sticking it in the bank (as ForEx) to accrue interest for the (shadow bank) investors. This gives the $$$$ lenders unnecessary leverage and is, in effect, a soft-Yeltsin approach that will destroy the Russian economy. If and when they want to withdraw their capital – Russia tanks.
The Saker laments that Putin is the Russian government: “Putin rules in a manual regime” …he has to do everything himself. What comes after him: he cannot rule forever?
What PCR does not say, is that the biggest $$$$ market is the offshore shadow banking sector …the so called Eurodollar market. The institutions that run this are the capitalist elite superclass: to whom he is giving a ‘free lunch’. It is this economic imperialism that has destroyed the world economy. Quite how this can be viewed as somehow ‘anti-imperial’ escapes definition. When the shadow bankers choose: they will collapse the ruble and turn the clock back to 1993. Can you explain how this is in the interest of the Russian people?

BigB
BigB
Jun 15, 2018 5:57 PM
Reply to  bevin

Hi Bevin: did you read the PCR link …or the embedded links where PCR and Michael Hudson talk about their misgivings on Russia’s neoliberal policies? Even the Saker gets dismayed that Putin has done little, except accomodate the “Atlantic Integrationists” as he terms them. So reversing the neoliberal order is not what is happening, not if hedge funds and the like controlling $70tn+ of $$$$ capital get invited to SPIEF to show that Russia is open for investment? That is neoliberal integration, is it not?
“Second, and to my personal great regret, Putin is a neo-liberal” The Saker.
http://thesaker.is/russian-presidential-elections-boring-useless-and-necessary/
You’ve never really defined what you think human autonomy is? My definition would be: not something one can find at the bottom of a heap of neoliberal supra-sovereignty. I don’t have any faith in the modern iteration of “democracy” either, or even “social democracy”, as you have noted. I’ve proposed on numerous occasions that all 19th and 20th paradigms are dead: having been predicated on cheap hydrocarbons that are no longer cheap. The fact that they still appear ‘cheap’ is that they are hugely subsidised by unrepayable debts (the unrepayability being something we both agree on?).
So the biggest strawman of all is that Russia/China offer an alternative to neoliberal globalisation. There is literally zero evidence for this: Russia /China want nothing more than neoliberal integration under the aegis of the UN/WTO:
“SCO member states also stressed the significance of improving the global economic governance system, consolidating and developing the multilateral trade mechanism with the World Trade Organization at its core, and building an open world economy.”
From the press communique of the recent SCO Summit, held the same weekend as the G7/G6 shitshow (and Bildeberg in Turin). I’m calling it globalisation’s “Good Cop, Bad Cop” act. I fail to see any “foci of resistance” in integrationionism?
There’s two ways this can go. The dominant superstructure of states are becoming bio-energtically and ecologically untenable. They will not cede power. They, and the supra-sovereign central banking system that serves them will draw and horde resources to themselves. The choice is simple: they get rid of us (not even necessarily intentionally) …or we get rid of them? Preferably, non-violently …if the repressive state apparatuses come with us? Then we can live in peace and harmony with what’s left of Nature? Not very worldly or practical, I admit …but still preferable to the neoliberal globalisation project that Russia and China are integrating into, IMO. Global economic governance, anyone?

Harry Stotle
Harry Stotle
Jun 15, 2018 9:47 AM

“Do people in the West really know what is like to be colonized? Do they know what the Venezuelan opposition is?” – no, of course they don’t, because if they did they would have long ago turned on the establishment (or rotten media acting at their behest) responsible for a never ending list of human rights abuses, and illegal wars.
On the plus side many westeners are very knowledgable about ‘Love Island’ and the football transfer market.

John Marks
John Marks
Jun 15, 2018 8:32 AM

Don’t forget West Papua, André.
It is suffering raw colonialist exploitation and destruction at the hands of one of the worst of the West’s apprentices: Indonesia.
As you eloquently wrote, an independent country (Indonesia) got the ‘Syria treatment’ way back in the ’60s and has never recovered. The people now crawl in fear of the religious (mostly Wahhabist) storm-troopers that “police” the abject tyranny Indonesia has become.
And they’re spreading this by vicious conquest, beginning with West Papua.

Seamus Padraig
Seamus Padraig
Jun 14, 2018 11:59 PM

Before Dilma got ‘impeached’ by the pro-Western bunch of corrupt freaks, I suggested in my essay that was censored by Counterpunch but published by dozens of other outlets world-wide …

For those of you who are not yet aware, CounterPunch is no longer the stalwart anti-imperialist publication it once was under Alexander Cockburn. The new editor, Jeffery St. Clair, has just purged most of their best contributors, including, it seems, Vltchek himself. For this reason, I’ve now taken to calling the publication ‘CounterPurge’.

bevin
bevin
Jun 15, 2018 3:37 AM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

It is a peculiar business: russophobia is one of the oldest heresies among socialists. It lay behind the SPD’s justification of its vote of war credits in 1914 -the ‘need’ to protect the gains of the working class from Russian barbarism, exemplified by Tsarist autocracy.
It is a form of ‘orientalism’ which goes hand in hand with the idea that the Russian peasant loves the knout and Russians need strong men to lead them. It goes back to the justification of imperialism on the grounds that ‘despotism’ is the characteristic form of government in Asia. And that ‘savages’ in North America (in fact famously democratic) are ruled by brutal war chiefs.
For many ‘socialists’ the Whig theories of history and ‘enlightenment’ ideas, form the foundation of their world views, to which a thin veneer of socialist slogans give a misleadingly red coloration to what is really left liberalism. Critical thought is harder work than the rote learning of a few slogans, rules and quotes ripped out of any context.
Sadly this infects a much wider sample of ‘left’ websites than Counterpunch: relatively sympathetic places like The Canary carry their regular ration of sub Clinton “Russia did it” stories-today there are a couple premissed on the nonsense that the Russian state financed the Brexit campaign. Evolve Media has the same tendencies. And then there is Paul Mason.
It adds up to an enormous boost to the NATO narrative, support from precisely that part of the political spectrum which has inherited the old (Tribunite-CND )task of criticising NATO and insisting on realistic appraisals of the ‘threat’ from Russia.
It is obvious why ambitious individuals bend over backwards to accommodate those with power and money in society by spinning paradoxes to show that revolutionary though they may be, their politics actually offer a means of delivering ‘Marxist’ support to the ruling class.
Like the Trade Unions which turn the idea of workers power into a method of selling labour peace to the bosses, these russophobic ‘revolutionaries’ offer the warmongers the support of the masses. Just as the right wing of the SPD did in 1914.

balkydj
balkydj
Jun 15, 2018 9:45 AM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

@Admin & @Seamus :-
Great Link, & sound connectivity, for better synergy & Market IQ intel. & QED .. conclusions >>
the slippery slope & Trolling minds with methodology & furtive suggestion, to ‘provide’ extra added confusion of simple values.
Well worth absorbing over yer’ coffee, Admin, ensuring sensory ‘smells’ with aromatherapy.. 😉
Thanks for the heads up , Seamus : what a shame , but right / write good to know yer’ impressions, coz’ i had noticed something was different and you just clarified why .. 😉

RealPeter
RealPeter
Jun 15, 2018 10:46 AM
Reply to  Seamus Padraig

I’ve been blocked from CounterPunch for the last couple of weeks – I don’t know why. I agree with Seamus that there’s a lot of dross (outraged Democrats whinging and moaning about Trump,etc.), but before being blocked I did sometimes see good stuff about Israel-Palestine and the Russia-gate nothing-burger.
Fortunately, there’s still Off-G.

balkydj
balkydj
Jun 15, 2018 12:19 PM
Reply to  RealPeter

I cannot sign into a few locations any more e.g. so, i just unsubscribed from receiving the Independent headlines completely 5 minutes ago: as they have clearly been blocking me for ages, with a variety of tricks, lies and absurd failure notices: and I have evidence of them editing out my comments most innocent, infringing no community regs whatsoever and merely complimenting another comment .. total censorship creeping in-like-inertiacreeps up on ya’ & whoosh ..
Their loss 😉 in the long run .. it is to be appreciated, having one less load of ±!@£$%^&*()_+ to run the eyes over .. The ZioNazi Directorship & TPTB are truly panicked , losing it more & more by the day and desperate to maintain any semblance of face: but when you glance down to the comments, the only face you see is that of sheeple & morons, spouting like Parrots, often more likely the ZioNazi’s own paid trolls inter(b)reading each other , who’ll soon be bored with their script, low wages and non-entity crowing, crooning & conversational vacuous gestures to one another .. 😉
Elsewhere here, we can read about d’dumdums who shame the UK on arrival in Russia, who declined the traditional Bread & Salt greeting of hospitality (from the poor man truly maligned) , as Spanish Fans looked on bemused & confused by the Brits. reactions, that were suggesting seriously a Poison of some sort or another.. the Spanish fans accepted the simple gesture & greeting in the spirit it was intended. (logic)
I can’t wait till the Spanish get stuck into the ‘Novichok Vodka’ on a Black Labeled gesture of humour, most pure .. you can be sure it will be a fine Vodka to enjoy , whilst laughing at the simple minds of sheep & shameful behavioural patterns .. watching from abroad, (since 1990) , I have to say, judging by what is on offer to read and watch as daily diet , back thur’ in the UK , the whole nation EXUDES a shameful average intelligence rating, I would never have even dreamt likely ..
So dumbed down, said my brother in London to me, just this very morning! I quote:-
“Got go to work now . Don the bike gear ready for the fight ! ( everyday bro ! Fight the power .. We are governed by psychopaths and surrounded by brain washed vacuous sheeple!) ”
But, his son, has a new Russian girlfriend , studying medicine, great lol ! and she seems to be quite a knockout and real smart with it , ready to treat the casualties, in mind, body & soul 🙂
As you said: “Fortunately, there’s still Off-G.”
and I immediately spread the word to my brother, early this morning .. which reminds me: better we start spreading word collectively: before friends & family start to further torment with & foment a Fascist ZioNazi Apartheid politic , with a frothy topping of vacuous foaming at the mouth,
when being greeted with traditional foreign common cultural hospitality ..
I think demented was the word I was looking for, yep: dementia creeps up on people .. 🙂
Demented inertia creeps 🙂 with inert properties ..
Miriam W’s “Definition of inert
1 : lacking the power to move
2 : very slow to move or act : sluggish
3 : deficient in active properties, especially : lacking a usual or anticipated chemical or biological action..”
of Mind & mindset, say I and my brother 🙂

bevin
bevin
Jun 15, 2018 2:58 PM
Reply to  RealPeter