re: Putin's Latest Target: Free Speech on the Internet
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/23632-putins-latest-target-free-speech-on-the-internet
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Truthout editors and readers need to recognize that Russia - and through it our whole civilization - is faced with an existential threat eminating from the US-based Empire. The media coverage - and non-coverage - of the unfolding horror in Ukraine is atrocious, comparable to the worst of the Cold War era.
That Russia harbors Edward Snowden while restricting the internet is only a contradiction if taken out of context. Russia is the intended victim of a well-prepared assault, with the neo-Nazi anti-Russian putschist government put in place by the US in Ukraine the driving wedge. Like Ukraine, Russia is riddled with CIA, MI6, Mossad and German operatives, many of them placed or recruited through pseudo-liberal NGO's. That the Russian government is corrupt can make this harder to see, but it is still the intended victim, targeted for refusing to submit and being cynically and extravagantly painted as the villains by our corporate and "public" media.
This is a moment when the Truthout community needs to choose between standing against the Empire or effectively siding with it the way the Cold War Liberals did from 1945 to 1990. This is perhaps a more dangerous moment than the Cuban Missile Crisis, because our Empire is entering its death throes, its leaders are losing their grip on reality, and are threatening taking the world down with them. We who are in the "Belly of the Beast" have a special responsibility we cannot escape. To understand yet fail to act to block it, to hide behind ahistorical moralistic positions while ignoring the radically asymmetry of the US-Russian confrontation, is cowardice. A site that fails to convey this overarching reality and panders to the self-righteous judgmentalism of the oppressor nations does not fully deserve to call itself "alternative".
I would suggest going to RT.com for news about Ukraine, and globalresearch.ca for analysis. Not perfect, but good, solid. If reading these leaves you feeling like you're entering an alternative reality, consider that you may instead be leaving one.
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[Reply to comment:]
Mulga, Thanks for the acknowledgment. However I do blame TruthOut. Getting news of what is actually happening in the world to the American people - and in particular to the American left - is critically important, a matter of life and death actually, and that's a responsibility that this site [TruthOut] pretends to have taken on.
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[Reply to comment:]
Mulga, Thanks for the acknowledgment. However I do blame TruthOut. Getting news of what is actually happening in the world to the American people - and in particular to the American left - is critically important, a matter of life and death actually, and that's a responsibility that this site [TruthOut] pretends to have taken on.
The American public and our bought and paid for Congress, following the lead of the British people and Parliament, amazed the world by stopping a war last October. That was only possible because too much news had leaked out about what was actually going on. No doubt it helped that American soldiers were publicly declaring they would not go to war to defend Al Qaida.
If the news gets widely distributed that the US Government is backing actual flaming Nazis in Ukraine, who shot their way into power Nazi-style and are doing actual murderous Nazi stuff, consolidating their rule with bullying, murder, and intimidation, lies and deception, backed by US-paid mercenaries and apparently under the personal direction of the chief of the CIA, this whole adventure could perhaps be stopped.
But if progressive activists who have come to trust TruthOut to give us "the rest of the news," and at this critical juncture instead get fed this kind of slimy drivel, they have potentially been neutralized.
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[Reply to comment:]
Cossack, How's this for a bit of reality? Here's some ground eye views from East Ukraine a few days ago:
Did you see anything like this on CNN or ABC? If they had shown these images, how could they have fit them into their narrative?
How in particular could they frame this as Russian expansionism?
Could you?
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