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The Unmasking of Imperialist Media by Jimmy Dore & Others is Not Just Drama

The always formidable Fiorella Isabel provides an eloquent description of the current hostility between opportunists and fake leftists (the Young Turks and their supporters and sycophants, plus a hefty contingent of pro-imperialism "breadtubers" like Vaush, Skipy the ear, etc.) and the genuine left, led by Jimmy Dore, the tireless folks at The Grayzone (Ben Norton, Aaron Maté, Max Blumenthal, and Anya Parampil), plus Eva Bartlett, Vanessa Beeley, Abby Martin, Lee Camp, Caleb Maupin and others of that caliber and dedication. In this kerfuffle, which is, as Fiorella points out, far from being a superficial and egotistical "drama" about mere personalities but a struggle for the very survival and viability of the genuine anti-imperialist left, many folks, like Kyle Kulinksy and Krystal Ball, are opportunistically sitting on the fence or actually supporting the fake leftists, thereby operating de facto as obstacles to the advance of antiwar forces.

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ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

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This is an article from our series on septic media

Baselessly accusing people of being Russian agents and weaponizing accusations of sexual misconduct are reputation-destroying cancers at the heart of liberal discourse.

An incredibly vicious and protracted war is being waged, seemingly with no end in sight, among numerous prominent liberal and left-wing commentators who work primarily on YouTube. The conflict erupted on May 26 when Cenk Uygur — the founder and long-time host of The Young Turks, the largest liberal-left YouTube platform — baselessly and falsely accused independent journalist Aaron Maté of being “paid by the Russians,” while his co-host, Ana Kasparian, spouted innuendo that Maté was “working for” unnamed dictators.

Maté is one of the very few left-wing journalists who reported skeptically on Russiagate and who questioned the U.S. Government’s narrative about the civil war in Syria, including by traveling to war-torn parts of that country to do so. He won the 2019 Park Center for Independent Media’s Izzy Award for his work debunking Russiagate. Yet with a one-minute rant from their insulated studio, Uygur baselessly branded Maté as someone who is “paid by the Russians” while Kasparian asserted that he “seemed” to be working for Assad and other dictators — a potentially reputation-destroying smear for a journalist and one that can be quite dangerous for a reporter who, like Maté, works on the ground in war zones.

The conflict engendered by those grotesque fabrications escalated significantly when Kasparian sent a private Twitter message to one of Maté’s defenders, Jimmy Dore, in which she threatened to accuse Dore of #MeToo-type sexual harassment from when they worked together seven years earlier. Kasparian made clear that her intent to publicly vilify Dore as a sexual harasser would serve as punishment for his criticisms of The Young Turks. Dore then revealed Kasparian’s threat on his program, and days later, Kasparian made good on her threat by accusing Dore of sexual harassment back in 2014.

While I used my social media platforms to denounce the false accusations voiced by Uygur and Kasparian against Maté, none of this would merit an article or stand-alone commentary if not for the fact that the two weapons they chose — false accusations that someone is a paid Russian agent and exploited sexual harassment accusations — have become extremely commonplace in Democratic Party politics, liberal circles and U.S. politics more broadly. It is long past time — way past time — that these tactics be rejected and scorned by everyone regardless of ideology or personality preferences.

I decided to analyze and dissect this conflict not in order to narrate everything that happened here or to arbitrate who is right and wrong with respect to every disagreement these parties are having. Instead, it is worth examining because the way this nasty exchange unfolded provides such a vivid and illuminating case study of two metastasizing cancers at the heart of liberal discourse. Both of these weapons are ethically repugnant and corrupt — obviously so — yet somehow have become as common and accepted among Democratic Party followers as they are toxic and reprehensible.

From Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean to Rachel Maddow and countless other liberal cable hosts, casually and falsely smearing people as paid Russian agents is now completely normalized behavior in liberal culture. And the list of people whose reputations have been destroyed from evidence-free and cynically deployed sexual harassment allegations or other vague accusations of sexual misconduct is too long to comprehensively chronicle. I examine these two issues in the format of video, which can be watched on the player below, because that is where so much of it has played out and because it seemed that is how the severity and magnitude of these abuses could be most effectively conveyed:

Glenn Greenwald is a journalist, former constitutional lawyer, and author of four New York Times bestselling books on politics and law. His most recent book, “No Place to Hide,” is about the U.S. surveillance state and his experiences reporting on the Snowden documents around the world. His forthcoming book, to be published in April, 2021, is about Brazilian history and current politics, with a focus on his experience in reporting a series of exposés in 2019 and 2020 which exposed high-level corruption by powerful officials in the government of President Jair Bolsonaro, which subsequently attempted to prosecute him for that reporting. Foreign Policy magazine named Greenwald one of the top 100 Global Thinkers for 2013. He was the debut winner, along with “Democracy Now’s” Amy Goodman, of the Park Center I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism in 2008, and also received the 2010 Online Journalism Award for his investigative work breaking the story of the abusive detention conditions of Chelsea Manning.

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REPOSTED DUE TO INCREASED RELEVANCY
first published Oct 8, 2018

By C.J. Hopkins
Consent Factory, Inc.

If there is one thing that still unites Americans across the ever more intellectually suffocating and bitterly polarized political spectrum our imaginations have been crammed into like rush hour commuters on the Tokyo Metro, it’s our undying love of identity politics.

Who doesn’t love identity politics? Liberals love identity politics. Conservatives love identity politics. Political parties love identity politics. Corporations love identity politics. Advertisers, anarchists, white supremacists, Wall Street bankers, Hollywood producers, Twitter celebrities, the media, academia … everybody loves identity politics.

Why do we love identity politics? We love it for many different reasons.

The ruling classes love identity politics because they keep the working classes focused on race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and so on, and not on the fact that they (i.e., the working classes) are, essentially, glorified indentured servants, who will spend the majority of their sentient existences laboring to benefit a ruling elite that would gladly butcher their entire families and sell their livers to hepatitic Saudi princes if they could get away with it. Dividing the working classes up into sub-groups according to race, ethnicity, and so on, and then pitting these sub-groups against each other, is extremely important to the ruling classes, who are, let’s remember, a tiny minority of intelligent but physically vulnerable parasites controlling the lives of the vast majority of human beings on the planet Earth, primarily by keeping them ignorant and confused.

The political parties love identity politics because it allows them to conceal the fact that they are bought and paid for by these ruling classes, which, in our day and age, means corporations and a handful of obscenely wealthy oligarchs who would gut you and your kids like trout and sell your organs to the highest bidder if they thought they could possibly get away with it. The political parties employ identity politics to maintain the simulation of democracy that prevents Americans (many of whom are armed) from coming together, forming a mob, dismantling this simulation of democracy, and then attempting to establish an actual democracy, of, by, and for the people, which is, basically, the ruling classes’ worst nightmare. The best way to avoid this scenario is to keep the working classes ignorant and confused, and at each other’s throats over things like pronouns, white privilege, gender appropriate bathrooms, and the complexion and genitalia of the virtually interchangeable puppets the ruling classes allow them to vote for.

Obama with Hollywood groupie Clooney. Clooney has been obliging in his support of imperial interventions in the Middle East, Darfur, and other flashpoints.

The corporate media, academia, Hollywood, and the other components of the culture industry are similarly invested in keeping the vast majority of people ignorant and confused. The folks who populate this culture industry, in addition to predicating their sense of self-worth on their superiority to the unwashed masses, enjoy spending time with the ruling classes, and reaping the many benefits of serving them … and, while most of them wouldn’t personally disembowel your kids and sell their organs to some dope-addled Saudi trillionaire scion, they would look the other way while the ruling classes did, and then invent some sort of convoluted rationalization of why it was necessary, in order to preserve democracy and freedom (or was some sort of innocent but unfortunate “blunder,” which will never, ever, happen again).

Identity politics has clear commercial implications, as advertisers are now recognizing the ever growing spending power of minorities and are trying to cater to them as well. (Image: Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, two well known pop celebrities.)

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he fake Left loves identity politics because it allows them to pretend to be “revolutionary” and spout all manner of “militant” gibberish while posing absolutely zero threat to the ruling classes they claim to be fighting. Publishing fake Left “samizdats” (your donations to which are tax-deductible), sanctimoniously denouncing racism on Twitter, milking whatever identity politics scandal is making headlines that day, and otherwise sounding like a slightly edgier version of National Public Radio, are all popular elements of the fake Left repertoire.

Marching along permitted parade routes, assembling in designated “free speech areas,” and listening to speeches by fake Left celebrities and assorted Democratic Party luminaries, are also well-loved fake Left activities. For those who feel the need to be even more militant, pressuring universities to cancel events where potentially “violent” and “oppressive” speech acts (or physical gestures) might occur, toppling offensive historical monuments, ratting out people to social media censors, or masking up and beating the crap out of “street Nazis” are among the available options. All of these activities, by herding potential troublemakers into fake Left ghettos and wasting their time, both on- and off-line, help to ensure that the ruling classes, their political puppets, the corporate media, Hollywood, and the rest of the culture industry can keep most people ignorant and confused.

Oh, and racists, hardcore white supremacists, anti-Semites, and other far-Right wing nuts … my God, do they love identity politics! Identity politics are their entire worldview (or Weltanschauung, for you Nazi fetishists). Virtually every social, political, economic, and ontological phenomenon can be explained by reducing it to race, ethnicity, religion, or some other simplistic criterion, according to these “alt-Right” geniuses. And to render everything even more simplistic, each and every one of their simplistic theories can be subsumed into a meta-simplistic theory, which amounts to (did you guess it?) a conspiracy of Jews.

The fake Left loves identity politics because it allows them to pretend to be “revolutionary” and spout all manner of “militant” gibberish while posing absolutely zero threat to the ruling classes they claim to be fighting.

According to this meta-theory, this conspiracy of Jews (which is headquartered in Israel, but maintains offices in Los Angeles and New York, from which it controls the corporate media, Hollywood, and the entire financial sector) is responsible for … well, anything they can think of. September 11 attacks? Conspiracy of Jews. Financial crisis? Jews, naturally. Black on Black crime? Jews again! Immigration? Globalization? Gun control laws? Abortion? Drugs? Media bias? Who else could be behind it all but Jews?!

See, the thing is, there is no essential difference between your identity politics-brainwashed liberal and your Swastika-tattooed white supremacist. Both are looking at the world through the lens of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or some other type of “identity.” They are looking through this “identity” lens (whichever one it happens to be) because either they have been conditioned to do so (most likely from the time they were children) or they have made a conscious choice to do so (after recognizing, and affirming or rejecting, whatever conditioning they received as children).

Quantum physicists, Sufi fakirs, and certain other esoterics understand what most of us don’t, namely, that there is no such thing as “the Truth,” or “Reality,” apart from our perception of it. The world, or “reality,” or whatever you want to call it, is more than happy to transform itself into any imaginable shape and form, based on the lens you are looking at it through. It’s like a trickster in that regard. Look at “reality” through a racist lens, and everything will make sense according to that logic. Look at it through a social justice lens, or a Judeo-Christian lens, or a Muslim lens, or a scientific or a Scientologist lens, or a historical materialist or capitalist lens (it really makes no difference at all) … and abracadabra! A new world is born!

Sadly, most of us never reach the stage in our personal (spiritual?) development where we are able to make a conscious choice about which lens we want to view the world through. Mostly, we stick with the lens we were originally issued by our families and societies. Then we spend the rest of our fleeting lives desperately insisting that our perspective is “the Truth,” and that other perspectives are either “lies” or “errors.” The fact that we do this is unsurprising, as the ruling classes (of whatever society we happened to be born and socialized into) are intensely invested in issuing everyone a “Weltanschauung lens” that corresponds to whatever narrative they are telling themselves about why they deserve to be the ruling classes and we deserve to exist to serve them, fight their wars, pay interest on their loans, not to mention rent to live on the Earth, which they have claimed as their own and divided up amongst themselves to exploit and ruin, which they justify with “laws” they invented, which they enforce with armies, police, and prisons, which they teach us as children to believe is “just the way life is” … but I digress.

So, who doesn’t love identity politics? Well, I don’t love identity politics. But then I tend to view political events in the context of enormous, complex systems operating beyond the level of the individuals and other entities such systems comprise. Thus I’ve kind of been keeping an eye on the restructuring of the planet by global capitalism that started in the early 1990s, following the collapse of the U.S.S.R., when global capitalism (not the U.S.A.) became the first globally hegemonic system in the history of aspiring hegemonic systems.

Now, this system (i.e., capitalism, not the U.S.A), being globally hegemonic, has no external enemies, so what it’s been doing since it became hegemonic is aggressively destabilizing and restructuring the planet according to its systemic needs (most notably in the Middle East, but also throughout the rest of the world), both militarily and ideologically. Along the way, it has encountered some internal resistance, first, from the Islamic “terrorists,” more recently, from the so-called “nationalists” and “populists,” none of whom seem terribly thrilled about being destabilized, restructured, privatized, and debt-enslaved by global capitalism, not to mention relinquishing what remains of their national sovereignty, and their cultures, and so on.

I’ve been writing about this for over two years, so I am not going to rehash it all in detail here (this essay is already rather long). The short version is, what we are currently experiencing (i.e., Brexit, Trump, Italy, Hungary, et cetera, the whole “populist” or “nationalist” phenomenon) is resistance (an insurgency, if you will) to hegemonic global capitalism, which is, essentially, a values-decoding machine, which eliminates “traditional” (i.e., despotic) values (e.g., religious, cultural, familial, societal, aesthetic, and other such non-market values) and replaces them with a single value, exchange value, rendering everything a commodity.

The fact that I happen to be opposed to some of those “traditional” values (i.e., racism, anti-Semitism, oppression of women, homosexuals, and so on) does not change my perception of the historical moment, or the sociopolitical, sociocultural, and economic forces shaping that moment. God help me, I believe it might be more useful to attempt to understand those forces than to go around pointing and shrieking at anyone who doesn’t conform to my personal views like the pod people in Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

But that’s the lens I choose to look through. Maybe I’ve got it all assbackwards. Maybe what is really going on is that Russia “influenced” everyone into voting for Brexit and Donald Trump, and hypnotized them all with those Facebook ads into hating women, people of color, transsexuals, and the Jews, of course, and all that other “populist” stuff, because the Russians hate us for our freedom, and are hell-bent on destroying democracy and establishing some kind of neo-fascist, misogynist, pseudo-Atwoodian dystopia. Or, I don’t know, maybe the other side is right, and it really is all a conspiracy of Jews … transsexual, immigrant Jews of color, who want to force us all to have late-term abortions and circumcise our kids, or something.

I wish I could help you sort all that out, but I’m just a lowly political satirist, and not an expert on identity politics or anything. I’m afraid you’ll have to pick a lens through which to interpret “reality” yourself. But then, you already have, haven’t you … or are you still looking through the one that was issued to you?

CJ Hopkins
October 8, 2018
Photo: The United Colors of Benetton

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
DISCLAIMER: The preceding essay is entirely the work of our in-house satirist [Consent Factory] and self-appointed political pundit, CJ Hopkins, and does not reflect the views and opinions of the Consent Factory, Inc., its staff, or any of its agents, subsidiaries, or assigns. If, for whatever inexplicable reason, you appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to support it, please go to his Patreon page (where you can contribute as little $1 per month), or send your contribution to his PayPal account, so that maybe he’ll stop coming around our offices trying to hit our staff up for money. Alternatively, you could purchase his satirical dystopian novel, Zone 23, which we understand is pretty gosh darn funny, or any of his subversive stage plays, which won some awards in Great Britain and Australia. If you do not appreciate Mr. Hopkins’ work and would like to write him an abusive email, please feel free to contact him directly.

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Metallic Man
OpEds

A brutal but largely irrefutable assessment of US realities and intentions, a nation immersed for centuries in self-flattering myths of its own creation, albeit myths that conveniently favor the ruling oligarchy.

—The Editor

Can you believe that the morons in the American “news” media, the assholes in Washington DC, and the “talking heads” all still refer to America as a “democracy”. Really! Seriously!

It’s a de facto Military Empire.
It’s the largest Military Empire in history. And it lives for war. The vast budget of America is devoted to…
…wait for it…
…war!

Ah…

Which goes to show you just how stupid and idiotic America is today. It’s no longer a matter of being delusional. It’s a matter of pure and utter insanity and stupidity.

The American government would look quite different if it was focused on serving the needs of it’s people. It would look something like this…

But you know, people are slowly waking up. It only took them all until the nation is teetering at the edge of the cliff to notice, but well, better late than never. Don’t you know.

I initially found this on MoA in the comment section. It’s pretty good and I expounded upon it. It was originally found on Zero Hedge alongside the rest of the COVID nonsense that is day-to-day fodder in the “alternative” media.

Ah. You know what I am talking about; that Coronavius is just an excuse for more government powers.

Yup. It’s a comfortable narrative.

Far easier to digest than the truth; that the Coronavirus was a part of a multi-stage bio-weapons attack against China on CNY that went “tits up”.

go tits up [1] rude slang To break or malfunction; to die, fall apart, or cease to work. (A play on the phrase "go belly up." "Tits up" is sometimes hyphenated.) [2] rude slang By extension, to have a poor, undesired, or ruinous outcome; to fail completely or not come together at all.

Nevertheless, the obvious points that he had made are worthy of consideration, and at that, I have expounded upon that comment and added my very own “two cents”.

Here are Ten Things We Have Learned …. about American (and United States) government, democracy and the superiority of “the American way of life”, “freedom” and “liberty”…

1. The American political system is hopelessly corrupt.

It is irredeemably corrupt. Virtually all politicians are hopelessly corrupt. No political party can be trusted. They all can be, and have been, bought. They serve themselves, pretend to work in the interests of the nation while all the time acting as the "bag men" for the oligarchy.

2. Democracy is a sham.

It has been a sham for a very long time. There will never be any real democracy when money and power amount to the same thing. The Founding Fathers who wrote the Federalist Papers were absolutely correct. A Republic tends to turn into a Democracy. A Democracy tends to turn into an Oligarchy, and an Oligarchy tends to devolve into a Military Empire if left unchecked. America is an oligarchy ruled military empire. It hasn't been a democracy for centuries.

3. The system will stop at nothing to hold on to its power and, if possible, increase its levels of control and exploitation.

It has no scruples. No lie is too outrageous, no hypocrisy too nauseating, no human sacrifice too great. Those in power are psychopaths, surrounded by psychopathic toadies, and empowered by a corrupt well-established "good old boys" network.

4. So-called radical movements are usually nothing of the sort.

From whatever direction they claim to attack the system, they are just pretending to do so. These "radical movements" are just useful tools of the oligarchy, and serve to channel discontent in directions which are harmless to the power clique and even useful to its agendas.

5. Any “dissident” voice you have ever heard of through corporate media is probably a fake.

The system does not hand out free publicity to its actual enemies. The entire media machine is owned, run, funded (either directly or indirectly) by the government, or it's controlling interests; the oligarchy. Real and actually dissident voices are silenced through technological means, or barring that, killed outright.

6. Most people in our society are cowards.

They will jettison all the fine values and principles which they have been loudly boasting about all their lives merely to avoid the slightest chance of public criticism, inconvenience or even minor financial loss. Additionally, most American people have a price, and they will sell their soul, their businesses, their families and their futures for financial gain.

7. The mainstream media is nothing but a propaganda machine for the system…

...and those journalists who work for it have sold their sorry souls, placing their (often minimal) writing skills entirely at the disposition of Power. There are no longer any true dissident voices, or real journalism. Those that try to practice it must rely on social networks to get their messages heard, and the government, in one way or the other, controls all social media.

8. Police are not servants of the public…

...but servants of a powerful and extremely wealthy minority which seeks to control and exploit the public for its own narrow and greedy interests.

9. Scientists cannot be trusted.

They will use the hypnotic power of their white coats and authoritative status for the benefit of whoever funds their work and lifestyle. He who pays the piper calls the tune. And they all live for government funding. Either direct, or though an NGO that is supervised through the government.

10. Progress is a misleading illusion.

The “progress” of increasing automation and industrialization does not go hand in hand with a progress in the quality of human life. Rather, it is becoming increasingly evident, that it will tend to “progressively” reduce it to the point of complete extinction unless managed expertly and adroitly.

So… is “black”, actually “white”?

There is a percentage of the population in America that is waking up to the fact that the American government is corrupt. That it controls all media, not just the mainstream media, and that “alternative” media outlets are all corrupted. And the beloved alternatives are now, themselves part of the government narrative.

To check who is who…

See which of your favorite “alternative media” sources are parroting the government line. Let’s use this one; “China is the source of Coronavirus, and they are covering it up.”

Any “alternative media” that repeats some form of this narrative, is a de facto arm of the American government.

When they should really be talking about how neocon John Bolton (psychopathic neocon) was put in charge of the bio-weapons office in 2017.

When anyone is talking about Coronavirus being a bio-weapon but omits this most critical piece of information should tell you reams about what your source of information is. That’s like buying a new automobile without wheels, an engine, and a steering wheel.

If you cannot see that your beloved “alternative media” are simply parroting one of three key media talking directions, then you too… must be… a sheeple.

And while I am at it…

How all that “dangers of 5G” working out now?

Why, all the news articles about it all suddenly came to an end when American companies were able to compete against the Chinese lead in 5G technology. Imagine that! What a coincidence!

Who was promoting the “don’t use 5G” narrative?

Rush Limbaugh
Hall Turner
FOX News

The ones who promoted the government narrative, are themselves agents of the government.

Remember, boys and girls, your most beloved “alternative media” are just mouthpieces of the government. That way they control your actions and your behaviors by controlling yourfavorite news outlets. They construct one of three narratives and you end up following the narrative that appeals to what you want to believe.

Meanwhile, what is actually going on is hidden from sight.

Alt-Right

“It’s the evil Chinese. They mishandled a bio-weapon that they stole and are covering it up.”

And with that in mind, let me close with a short video that I made of my life here in China. It’s all of a few minutes long and worth the while for you all to have some perspective what things are like…

…for me on the outside looking into the house of madness that the USA is today. The video is HERE. 150MB.

To understand what is going on inside of the forest, you need to step out of it, climb a nearby hill and look at the bigger picture. There, from that vantage point, you will be able to see a much clearer and bigger picture of what is going on.

Do you want more?

You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.

The author is an American expat living in China—of his own volition.

New Beginnings .

Articles & Links

Master Index .

You can start reading the articles by going HERE.
You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
You can find out more about the author HERE.
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Our main image motif: Painted by famed Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, Glorious Victory is a critical and condemnatory view of the 1954 CIA coup of Guatemala’s democratically elected president Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán. The United States removed Árbenz from power and replaced him with a dictatorial military commander because Árbenz threatened the landholdings of the United Fruit Company with his agrarian reform laws.

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Help us break the corporate media monopoly before it kills us all. The global oligarchy depends on its disinformation machine to maintain its power. Now the malicious fog of Western propaganda has created an ocean of confusion in which even independent minds can drown. Please push back against this colossal apparatus of deception. Consider a donation today!

BLACK AGENDA REPORT

Danny Haiphong, BAR Contributing Editor

THIS IS A REPOST / FIRST PUBLISHED 01 Jul 2020

If independent media want to be a real counterweight to establishment media, they must challenge the status quo in its entirety.

“The question isn’t why am I cursing and angry, the question is why isn’t everyone else?”

Youtube is the second largest search engine worldwide and has become a popular platform for progressives and the left to conduct political education and debate. Few voices on the platform, however, meaningfully engage the questions of war, white supremacy, and U.S. imperialism. That cannot be said of Richard Medhurst, who is the subject of the following interview.

Danny Haiphong: Can you please tell readers of the Black Agenda Report a little about your background and the history behind your YouTube show?

Richard Medhurst: My name is Richard Thomas Medhurst. I was born in Damascus, Syria in 1992. My mother (Syrian) and father (British) served in United Nations Peacekeeping and Observation Missions in Angola, Lebanon, Syria, India, Pakistan (Kashmir), meaning we moved around a lot. They were among the UN Peacekeepers awarded the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize. Their work and these experiences directly shaped my life and outlook on international affairs. Additionally, I was lucky to have a good education – my entire high school education was completed in French and I am fluent in four languages: English, French, Arabic and German.

I started my show in late 2019 to cover US politics and international relations. There are a number of great indie channels out there that I admire, but not many cover foreign policy. Even fewer cover foreign policy from an anti-imperialist viewpoint.

I think one of the reasons people gravitate towards my channel is due to its explicit nature. I don’t have time to sugarcoat war crimes, murder and corruption. The question isn’t why am I cursing and angry, the question is why isn’t everyone else? I can also put on a blazer, speak in a high register BBC accent. There is nothing nice about politics. This is a vile, nasty business filled with suffering and anguish.

They’re too afraid to talk about Syria because YouTube will demonetize them. Fuck that. That’s pathetic. You’ll see them call out Israel’s barbarism against Palestinians once in a blue moon, and that’s it. They want to play it safe while also pretending to be an alternative to indie media. That’s unacceptable.

Danny Haiphong: You are very critical of the corporate media on your show. What role can independent media play in countering the narratives presented in mainstream news outlets?

Richard Medhurst: They should grow a spine. A lot of people in independent media do good work, but I’m tired of hearing “lefties” either completely ignore foreign policy or repeat CIA talking points about the Global South. You cannot be an American journalist or pundit, and then proceed to ignore international politics when your country dictates world affairs. Foreign policy is not a backburner issue, it is the issue.

Anyone can say “I support universal healthcare and a wage increase”. There’s nothing brave or controversial about catching up to the rest of the industrialized world. But how many will expose and stand up to American imperialism? Or the Zionist occupation in Palestine? How many will call out the Western-backed coup in Syria? The UK’s theft of Venezuelan gold? A handful, at best.

If independent media want to be a real counterweight to establishment media, they must challenge the status quo in its entirety. Many will advocate for Medicare For All, a Green New Deal -- things that are already mainstream -- but won’t touch anything else because they’re afraid of catching flak.

They’ll talk a bit about racial inequality, they’ll mention Palestine once in a while, but they won’t challenge US hegemony and imperialism when it matters.

“How many will expose and stand up to American imperialism? Or the Zionist occupation in Palestine?”

They must bring up the uncomfortable topics that no one wants to bring up. Repeating “end the wars” is not enough. What about economic sanctions that kill civilians? What about defunding the military? Talking about police brutality, racial inequality, the oppression of African Americans only when it’s trending on Twitter is not enough. This continued silence on Western imperialism is not only journalistic malpractice, but also ignorant.

A lot of these pundits have grown too comfortable arguing with conservatives online about healthcare, while burying their heads in the sand about everything else, specifically foreign policy. I don’t need someone pretending to be a leftist on YouTube to repeat the same nonsense I heard from Dick Cheney. I expect and demand better from people in leftist independent media.

They need a rude awakening and that’s why I’m here.

Danny Haiphong: Syria has not been subject to the same news coverage as in past years. Why is it so important to defend Syria right now?

Richard Medhurst: They’re silent because the United States lost its war on Syria.

The US and their allies have been trying to conquer Syria since 2011 to advance their imperialist agenda. One of their tools was to wage a war of disinformation, using the mainstream media to spread lies, provoke outrage, and sway international opinion in favor of regime change.

The mainstream media have never met a war they didn’t like. Whatever Uncle Sam says, they repeat. The New York Times and CNN beat the war drums for Iraq and they did the same for Syria.

Simultaneously, the US covertly funded and armed opposition groups inside Syria; so-called “moderate rebels” who then turn out to be affiliated with Al Qaeda and 50 other flavors of Jihad.

They also tried to provoke international outrage by claiming that Syria used chemical weapons, which of course turned out to be nonsense. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons published falsified reports and suppressed its own scientists to implicate the Syrian government. They are another international body controlled by Washington and their reputation is essentially tarnished and all credibility gone.

“The New York Times and CNN beat the war drums for Iraq and they did the same for Syria.”

The Syrian army has now recaptured most of the country. Only Idlib remains as the last major terrorist stronghold. Syria had been a self-sufficient country since the 1990s, producing its own wheat, cotton and more. Syria also has oil, which before the war accounted for 25% of all government revenue. The US knows this and is illegally occupying Syria’s oil fields to cut off revenue. US helicopters have begun burning down Syria’s wheat fields to starve the Syrian population -- a blatant war crime. Since their tricks haven’t worked, they have turned to sanctions (economic terrorism) in order to starve off Syria. It’s not about regime change anymore, it’s about burning the country down -- literally.

The new Caesar Act also just came into effect. This US law imposes new sanctions on Syria and anyone who deals with the country. The real aim here isn’t to punish Assad, it’s to prevent Syria from rebuilding.

These sanctions are evil and only hurt the civilian population. Independent media have a moral obligation to call out and expose these atrocities.

Danny Haiphong: What do you find most troubling about the mainstream media’s coverage of the recent mass demonstrations in the United States?

Richard Medhurst:  The mainstream media is a tool, an arm of the establishment and ruling elites. When the ruling elites feel threatened, they send the police and military to crack skulls and keep the workers in line. When it really counts, there is no free speech or first amendment. If you criticize America or the foundations upon which it was built (slavery, settler colonialism, genocide), then there is no first amendment for you.

The media pretends to stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter but constantly uses negative language and framing to delegitimize them. This is done on purpose. The media and their corporate puppet masters need the police to keep the population in line and maintain the status quo.

It doesn’t matter if protestors are peaceful or not, the police will always be violent. We’ve all seen the videos of indiscriminate beatings, teargassing, etc. even when protestors are kneeling or are simply bystanders.

When Colin Kaepernick was taking a knee, the media called him “disruptive” and “unpatriotic”. And now when people are out in the streets protesting, they’re also called “disruptive” and “unpatriotic." These are typical oppressor tactics. No matter if you are peaceful or not, they will always try to paint you as the aggressor.

“When it really counts, there is no free speech or first amendment.”

Notice also how the media will always try to divert attention to material and capital wealth. They’ll talk about windows being smashed, or a store that was burned down. This is part of the conditioning to make people value material wealth over human life. They want you to be more outraged over a Target store than George Floyd's murder. They want you to believe that corporations are more valuable than people. This is a sickness. This is capitalism.

Pay attention to the language used and choice of words. They constantly say that George Floyd was “killed,” when in fact he was murdered in cold blood – all on camera. Breonna Taylor was shot eight times in her apartment while sleeping, but they just say she was “killed.” They tone down the language on purpose in order to protect the police.

Even if you were to play devil’s advocate, and claim that protestors are allegedly being violent, and supposedly looting – this pales in comparison to the injustices committed against African Americans. Over 400 years of slavery, of torture, of killing and persecution. The looting of Africa itself – an entire continent ravaged by colonialism.

Black men are also being lynched just weeks apart, and the police are immediately dubbing them as suicides to cover up the murders and avoid further protests. Black men are still being lynched in 2020 and the mainstream media have said absolutely nothing. This is inadmissible and fucking outrageous. The media are complicit with white supremacy, with murder, and directly enabling the oppression of African Americans every single minute by refusing to do their jobs and hold the authorities accountable.

Danny Haiphong: Some of the most-watched segments of your show involve scathing critiques of the Democratic Party. Can you please share some of your (uncensored) reflections with our readers?

Richard Medhurst:  There is no real Left in America. The Democratic Party is not a workers’ party, nor is it a leftist party. Anywhere else in the world they would be a right-wing party. Moreover, what you have in the United States is a one-party system where the two factions – Republicans and Democrats – come together to fuck over the working class. They appear to be at odds with each other on a handful of issues. However, when it comes to maintaining the interests of the American empire through war, sanctions, bailouts and corporate handouts -- miraculously they seem to agree with each other and “reach across the aisle.” Their sole purpose is to serve the oligarchs to whom they’ve prostituted themselves, and to give people the illusion of choice. This way they can pacify the working class and prevent revolt.

Those who call themselves “progressives” but tell you to vote for a racist warmonger like Joe Biden are nothing but crypto-neoliberal bastards and must be exposed as such. It’s usually white, upper middle-class people saying this, who’ve obviously never seen nor been on the receiving end of neoliberal policies (crime bill, more wars, outsourcing of jobs, etc.).

Moreover, the Progressives Caucus within the Democratic party is a joke. They have no agenda; every member votes a different way and they refuse to form an actual resistance against the neoliberal crooks running the party or call out their leadership. They’re not interested in standing up for workers, they’re interested in preserving their careers.

“Those who call themselves ‘progressives’ but tell you to vote for a racist warmonger like Joe Biden are nothing but crypto-neoliberal bastards.”

This notion that you can reform the Democratic party by electing more progressives is complete horse shit. They’re basically telling you to wait another 50 years and die without healthcare for them to maybe get enough people in the party, who will be coopted by the neoliberal establishment anyway. This is preposterous and insulting. You don’t reform the Democratic party, the Democratic party reforms you. Washington D.C. does not allow revolutionaries or well-intentioned rookies to thrive. It blunts them, absorbs them into the party and molds them to remove their teeth.

Capitol Hill is a sideshow to distract people from Wall Street, where all the real decisions are made. Lawmakers don’t control Wall Street; it’s the other way around. Many people recognize this, yet are dying to pursue electoral politics, as if it were some kind of entertainment or sport. And in many ways, it is a spectacle. It’s designed to distract and pacify the masses while they get away with murder.

The only thing that gets things done is direct action. I was yelling about this since the beginning, and lo and behold here it is. The protests happening now led to George Floyd’s killers being arrested. Rayshard Brook’s killers were arrested. The Minneapolis police department has been overhauled. Direct action got these things done, not politicians.

Danny Haiphong: Your social commentary is consistently rooted in an anti-capitalist and anti-imperial framework. What books and/or experiences radicalized you to adopt these political commitments?

Richard Medhurst:  I haven’t seen my family in Syria in over ten years because of a war started by imperialists and multinational corporations. I think that would piss anyone off.

I have been all over the Global South and I’m no stranger to former colonies. I’ve seen firsthand the poverty that they are condemned to after centuries of plundering by former European colonies. I was born in Syria, which used to be a French mandate. Before that it was occupied by the Ottomans for 400 years. When the British and French decided to carve up Syria, they set the entire region on fire and plunged it into chaos that lasts to this very day.

Destroying Arab nationalism and unity has always been a priority for the West because they fear our strength. It is therefore every Syrian and every Arab’s duty to be anti-imperialist. Imperialism is a cancer that has plagued the Middle East and Africa for centuries, and we must unite to resist it.

Understanding history, particularly colonialism and the Cold War, is crucial in order to grasp what is going on today. I cannot stress this enough.

When you learn of how the European empires plundered Africa’s resources, committed genocide, and engaged in slavery, it makes me angry. They teach you in school that colonialism came to an end in 1945, yet many Western powers still maintain oppressive neo-colonial ties with their former colonies and bully them into submission.

When the European powers began crumbling after 1945, America picked up where they left off. The United States perpetuates the same imperialism, rooted in white supremacy and American exceptionalism, while hiding under the label of a supposed democracy.

I grew up seeing Colin Powell lie at the UN about WMDs that didn’t exist. I saw the entire world change after 9/11, with everyone treating Arabs like terrorists.

How anyone can read about these atrocities and not be anti-imperialist is beyond me.

Danny Haiphong: How can readers of the Black Agenda Report support your work?

Richard Medhurst: You can help support my work by subscribing to my channel on YouTube and by following me on twitter.

Youtube - youtube.com/richardmedhurst

Twitter - twitter.com/papichulomin

You can also support the show financially by signing up on Patreon, endorsing me on Rokfin, or by contributing a one-time donation on PayPal.

Patreon - patreon.com/papichulomin

Rokfin - rokfin.com/richardmedhurst

Paypal - paypal.me/papichulomin

Danny Haiphong is an activist and journalist in the New York City area. He and Roberto Sirvent are co-authors of the book entitled American Exceptionalism and American Innocence: A People’s History of Fake News--From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror (Skyhorse Publishing). He can be reached at wakeupriseup1990@gmail.com, on Twitter @spiritofho, and on Youtube at The Left Lens with Danny Haiphong.

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