PEPE ESCOBAR—Those behind the Throne are never more dangerous than when they have their backs against the wall. Their power is slipping away, fast: Militarily, via NATO’s progressive humiliation in Ukraine; Financially, sooner rather than later, most of the Global South will want nothing to do with the currency of a bankrupt rogue giant; Politically, the global majority is taking decisive steps to stop obeying a rapacious, discredited, de facto minority.
ESSENTIAL
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Censorship in China and The CIA’s War Against the CPC
32 minutes readHE ZHAO—When a state has been under ceaseless and constant destabilisation campaigns from an exponentially richer and more powerful enemy that uses every opportunity at subversion, sabotage, colour revolution, funding extremists, arming opposition, regime change, and coup d’etats to destroy their government by any means necessary, this government implements defensive measures such as censorship of enemy-dominated global media, and censorship of political content in culture, which sometimes, without consideration of this history, seem unreasonably harsh.
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Dmitri Shostakovich – “Leningradskaia”: The End of the Siege and the Triumph of the Spirit
41 minutes readNORA HOPPE—Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony was written in 1941, primarily during the Siege of Leningrad by the Nazi forces. When it had its premiere in the war-torn city on 9th August 1942 – performed by the emaciated, surviving musicians of the Leningrad Radio Orchestra that was supplemented with military performers, before a starving but euphoric audience – it was hailed as a universal beacon of resistance to barbarism. The conductor, Karl Eliasberg, concluded that “in that moment, we triumphed over the soulless Nazi war machine”.
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JOHN RACHEL—Yes, while everyday people are personally struggling with accelerating inflation, stagnant wages, job insecurity and shrinking opportunity, business closures, out-of-control housing costs, food shortages, energy shortages, baby formula shortages, on and on, and because of the exploding deficit — now pushing our national debt beyond the legal debt ceiling — there’s no relief in sight from Uncle Sam for us regular folks. Yet by some stroke of magic or divine intervention, there are limitless piles of money to send to Ukraine; plenty of funding to ship increasingly lethal weaponry to the psychopathic, neo-Nazi regime in Kiev, in order to keep the war going; plenty in the vault to vastly increase US/NATO military readiness in Europe; mountains of resources available to rebuild Ukraine, relocate its refugees, prop up its comedian/puppet/war-to-the-death-of-the-last-Ukrainian marketeer, Volodymyr Zelensky, and keep the sickenly corrupt, anti-democratic regime of one of the most corrupt, anti-democratic nations on Planet Earth in power.
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“Why Don’t You Ever Criticize RUSSIA’S Warmongering??”
22 minutes readCAITLIN JOHNSTONE—“Why don’t you ever criticize RUSSIA’S warmongering?” is a question I am often asked with great indignation. People cannot comprehend why I would spend all my time criticizing the warmongering of the power structure I live under without spending any time criticizing the government they’re used to hearing criticisms of. It’s a question born of delusion and propaganda brainwashing, and it has several good answers. Here are some of my favorites.