S. KARGANOVIC—Moldova is now reaping the bitter harvest of its partnership with the EU, in which it was embroiled by its crooked leaders. Democracy has turned into a pipe dream and the institutions of government are in a state of collapse. Statistics award Moldova the unenvied status of Europe’s poorest country and its citizens are predictably fleeing abroad en masse. Reforms are stagnating. However, European partners began expressing concern over these minor details only when their new man, Andrei Nastase, was blocked from becoming Kishinev’s new mayor after the Plahotniuk-controlled Supreme Court invalidated his by all accounts fair and square electoral victory.
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RAMIN MAZAHERI—France is behind Germany in US-UK-Anglo-Saxon aping, of course. What does the neoliberal playbook instruct when you have already had labor “reforms”, like in Germany? You let in 1 million highly-educated Syrians in order to create even more capitalist competition among workers and thus lower standards for accepting a job. This has the added side effect of fuelling that sentiment which creates plenty of headlines that can divert from your Lost Decade but which only makes its practitioners feel badly and angry – nationalism (as opposed to “patriotism”, which is not racist or Islamophobic).
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RAMIN MAZAHERI—I haven’t watched her for years (or ever, really) but since the election of Donald Trump Rachel Maddow has become the figurehead of a rather sadistic and certainly reactionary movement in US mainstream media: employing Russophobia to distract attention from the sins, failures, lawbreaking and cheating of the US Democratic Party during the 2016 presidential campaign.
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ERIC ZUESSE—America’s CIA has actually been trying ever since 1949 to place the Middle East’s only committedly anti-sectarian, pro-secular, nation, Syria, under the control of the fundamentalist-Sunni Saud family, who own Saudi Arabia and cooperate with US oil companies.
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PHILIP A. FARRUGGIO—Today is the 17th anniversary of the 9/11 Twin Towers and Bldg. 7 false flag scenario. What transpired soon after that horrific event was the marriage between the sports media and the Pentagon. Case in point: before 2009 Pro Football teams stayed in their locker rooms while the National Anthem was played. After the Pentagon threw mega millions at the NFL, we had the weekly honor guards and pomp and circumstance, replete with a giant flag draped over the 100 X 55 yard playing field.
