AUTHORS

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Authors & Editors 

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Radical media critic and former economist Patrice Greanville is The Greanville Post’s founding editor.

Besides TGP, Greanville also served as publisher for Cyrano’s Journal Today, currently an archival site, and as editorial director for Punto Press Publishing. Like many people deeply invested in the triumph of justice and compassion, he is an enemy of all forms of animal abuse and exploitation, dominionism, and a passionate defender of authentic democracy, all of which puts him well outside the sphere of “corporate life” and most respectable company. He considers such exile one of the greatest bargains of his life. He makes his home in New York.  Contact him at patriceg@greanvillepost.com


Punto Press released China Rising – Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations (2016); and for Badak Merah, Jeff authored China Is Communist, Dammit! – Dawn of the Red Dynasty (2017). As well, he published a textbook, Doctor WriteRead’s Treasure Trove to Great English (2015). He is also currently penning an historical fiction, Red Letters – The Diaries of Xi Jinping, to be published in late 2018. Jeff is a Senior Editor & China Correspondent for The Greanville Post, where he keeps a column, Dispatch from Beijing. He also writes a column for The Saker, called the Moscow-Beijing Express. Jeff interviews and podcasts on his own program, China Rising Radio Sinoland, which is also available on SoundCloud, YouTube, Stitcher Radio and iTunes.

In China, he has been a speaker at TEDx, the Bookworm and Capital M Literary Festivals, the Hutong, as well as being featured in an 18-part series of interviews on Radio Beijing AM774, with former BBC journalist, Bruce Connolly. He has guest lectured at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences and various international schools and universities.

Jeff can be reached at China Rising, jeff@brownlanglois.com, Facebook, Twitter and Wechat/Whatsapp: +86-13823544196.


Joti BrarJOTI BRAR

Joti Brar (@joti2gaza), daughter of the great Communist activist and educator Harpal Brar,  is a political activist, editor and commentator. She is the deputy leader of the Workers Party of Britain and author of The Drive to War Against Russia and China and Identity Politics or Class Politics?

Her main site is The Communists


GARLAND NIXON
Garland Nixon is a leading geopolitical analyst, antiwar, anti-imperialist activist, and Bill of Rights defender. Garland is also a former police officer and criminal justice adjunct professor. He received the national "Stand" award from the American Civil Liberties Union (from which he ultimately resigned due to policy differences).

 


SCOTT RITTER
Scott Ritter is a former Marine intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union, implementing arms control agreements, and on the staff of General Norman Schwartzkopf during the Gulf War, where he played a critical role in the hunt for Iraqi SCUD missiles. From 1991 until 1998, Mr. Ritter served as a Chief Inspector for the United Nations in Iraq, leading the search for Iraq’s proscribed weapons of mass destruction. Mr. Ritter was a vocal critic of the American decision to go to war with Iraq. His new book, Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union, is his ninth.


BRIAN BERLETIC
Brian Berletic
is a US geopolitical analyst and anti-imperialist debunker; a former US Marine who for years—before inaugurating his new platform, THE NEW ATLAS, published biting, extremely well researched and scrupulous critiques of US foreign policy under the nom de guerre Tony Cartalucci. A US ex-pat, Brian currently resides in Thailand. His enemies are legion, which speaks well of the quality of his work and the courage of his personal mission. Here is just one attempt at smearing his name.


SABRINA SALVATI (SABBY SABS)
Sabrina Salvati is a leftist educator, content creator and host of Sabby Sabs podcast. She spent most of her childhood growing up in Germany and saw many benefits of leftist policies. Sabrina does leftist commentary and interviews activists, candidates, entrepreneurs and other change makers fighting political and social issues. Sabrina lives in the Boston area of Massachusetts with her husband.


DAVID W. PEAR, Senior Associate Editor

David William Pear is a Senior Associate Editor with The Greanville Post. David is a journalist, columnist, and commentator for TV and radio. His articles, essays and interviews have an emphasis on U.S. foreign policy, and he also focuses on economic and social issues. He is an advocate for peace, ending US wars of aggression, and promoting economic, political and social justice. He has been writing for The Real News Network, OpEdNews, The Greanville Post and other publications since 2009, after he retired as a Certified Financial Planner (CFP). He is a member of Veterans for Peace, Saint Pete (Florida) for Peace, CodePink and the Palestinian-led non-violent organization International Solidarity Movement. His articles are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution, Non-Commercial 4.0 International License, and they may be republished as such without obtaining any other or prior permission.


GLENN GREENWALD
A former attorney and leading journalist, GLENN GREENWALD is now a prominent independent free speech activist and geopolitical commentator. Glenn resides in Rio de Janeiro, with his husband and children, along with many animals they have rescued (he is a committed animal rights defender). Often acting as a conscience to humanity, Greenwald is today the closest we have to a Zola for our scandalously corrupt times.


MAX PARRY

MAX PARRY is an independent journalist and geopolitical analyst.  His writing is committed to an anti-war, anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist perspective in the tradition of Michael Parenti.  He is originally from San Diego, CA and resides in Brooklyn, NY.  His work has appeared in the Greanville Post, InSerbia Today and The Global Politics.  Max may be reached at maxrparry@live.com

 


BRANFORD PERRY, Associate Editor

Branford Perry, as he puts it in jest, is “No. 4 man on the mast” of The Greanville Post, but in reality, given his broad functions, as TGP’s  Associate Editor, he’s the No. 3 in command, primarily in charge of articles routing, production, and social media outreach. Formerly a resident of London, and an engineer with an specialization in ecological safeguarding, he now makes his base of operations mostly in the Montpellier area, and travels frequently throughout Northern Europe and other parts.  He is founding editor of a personal blog, Branford Perry’s Hipokrisy.net, but his work on TGP has literally pre-empted focus on that site.  Shy and reserved, we’re still waiting for his mug shot. Contact Branford at branford.perry@greanvillepost.com .


PAUL EDWARDS, Associate Editor

Paul Edwards is a genuine Renaissance man, gifted with many talents and participant in many events and struggles of our tormented times. Our colleague Jeff Brown, who did a fine interview with him, sums it up thusly: “Paul’s life story is worthy of a biography: a rebel youth growing up, traveling and working around the world and then a long career as a Hollywood writer. Through it all, he has never lost his lifelong wrath against US imperialism and global capitalism, while seeking social and economic justice for humanity’s 99%…”


Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for Press TV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. His work has appeared in various journals, magazines and websites, as well as on radio and television.

 

 


JACQUES PAUWELS

Jacques R. Pauwels is a people's historian. In the tradition pioneered by Marx and Engels, and continued by Michael Parenti,  Howard Zinn, Eric Hobsbawm, Leo Huberman, and others of similar merit, he writes history that is not only firmly grounded in truth but is aimed at liberating the mind from the claptrap of existing ruling class mythology. Pauwels has taught European history at the University of Toronto, York University, and the University of Waterloo. His books include Big Business and Hitler, The Great Class War 1914-1918, and The Myth of the Good War. TGP maintains a special historical section dedicated to his work.


DEBORAH ARMSTRONG
Deborah Armstrong currently writes about geopolitics with an emphasis on Russia. She previously worked in local TV news in the United States where she won two regional Emmy Awards. In the early 1990’s, Deborah lived in the Soviet Union during its final days and worked as a television consultant at Leningrad Television. She has a regular column at substack.com.


 

GODFREE ROBERTS, Senior Contributing Editor / Special Correspondent on Far Eastern affairs

Godfree Roberts is an Anglo-American expert in Far Eastern affairs. He has been visiting China since 1967 and following its rising fortunes ever since. After receiving his doctorate from UMass, Amherst, he moved to Chiang Mai, Thailand, an hour from the Chinese border, and began trying to understand the country's phenomenal success.  Godfree serves as Publisher of the weekly newsletter Here Comes China!, and is the author of Why China Leads the World: Talent at the Top, Data in the Middle, Democracy at the BottomHis articles are widely published in the alternative press, including Vineyard of the Saker, The Greanville Post, The Unz Review, China Rising, and other leading anti-imperialist publications. He lost his first job in 1961 for defending China's resumption of sovereignty over Tibet. He still annoys authorities by pointing out that the Chinese government has kept all its promises for the past 70 years while our government has broken them all.


THE SAKER

Ivan Ilyin. Just like the Russian philosopher Berdaev, rather than looking left or right, I rather look *up*! I also recognize myself in the notion of “Left of labor, Right of values” (Gauche du travail, droite des valeurs) of Alain Soral. My economics are: laissez-faire capitalism for the family and small business level, socialism for the corporation level and communism for strategic/national level sectors of the economy. All my info is 100% “open source”.  ( “My past experience with classified data tells me that it is either highly technical or time-critical but not otherwise better than open source information: 80% of all the good info is out there, in the open, it is just a matter of putting it together correctly.” ) (Read his full bio page here.)


Alex Rubinstein is an independent reporter on Substack. A real journalist, he has often contributed invaluable exposés published on MintPress News, and/or The Grayzone, as well as TGP. You can subscribe to get free articles from him delivered to your inbox here. If you want to support his journalism, which is never put behind a paywall, you can give a one-time donation to him through PayPal here or sustain his reporting through Patreon here


Danny Haiphong is a contributor to Black Agenda Report and host of The Left Lens. You can support Danny on Patreon byclicking this link. You can contact him at haiphongpress@protonmail.com.


NATHAN RICH

NATHAN RICH  (born February 13, 1982) is an American author, Scientology critic and content creator. He is currently an American expat living in China. He appeared on Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath alongside classmate Tara Reile about their experiences at the Scientology boarding school, the Mace-Kingsley Ranch School.  Since Rich supports Beijing in its struggle with Western disinformation, his Wikipedia page —controlled by the Western intelligence agencies—has been weaponised against him, and is filled with disparaging remarks about Rich (i.e., insinuations he lacks formal education, etc.) while presenting Rich's fact-based political statements in support of China regarding Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang's Uyghurs  and other issues in the news, as if Rich was in error.  The Wikipedia describes Rich as engaged in "China apologetics", which is stunningly cynical considering that a) what he says is corroborated by any impartial examination of the evidence, and b) almost all important coverage of international events is deformed to support Washington's and London's imperialist outlook on the world.


ANDREI MARTYANOV

ANDREI MARTYANOV is an expert on Russian military and naval issues. He was born in Baku, USSR, graduated from the Kirov Naval Red Banner Academy and served as an officer on the ships and staff position of Soviet Coast Guard through 1990. He took part in the events in the Caucasus which led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. In mid-1990s he moved to the United States where he worked as Laboratory Director in a commercial aerospace group. He is a frequent blogger on the US Naval Institute Blog. He is author of Losing Military Supremacy and The Real Revolution in Military Affairs

 


TERJE MALOY,  Special Contributing Editor

Terje Maloy is a Norwegian citizen, with roots north of the Arctic Circle. Nowadays, he spends a lot of time in Australia, working in the family business. He has particular interests in liberty, global justice, imperialism, history, media analysis and what Western governments really are up to.He runs a blog https://midtifleisen.wordpress.com, mostly in Norwegian, but occasionally in English. He likes to write about general geopolitical matters, and Northern Europe in particular, presenting perspectives that otherwise barely are mentioned in the dominant media (i.e. most things that actually matters). 


JIM KAVANAGH, Special Contributing Editor

Jim Kavanagh, a native and denizen of New York City, is a former cab driver and college professor. His articles have appeared on Counterpunch, The Greanville Post, The Unz Review, Z, and other sites around the net. He blogs at his website, thepolemicist.net, from a left-socialist perspective.

 


GARY OLSON, Special Contributing Editor

With Norwegian cultural roots, Gary Olson is an emeritus professor of political science at Moravian College. 


JOHN SCHOONOVER, Special Contributing Editor

John Schoonover is a social critic and geopolitical analyst whose essays are published in leading progressive sites, including  Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism, The Greanville Post and others. Schoonover cut his activist teeth in the Civil Rights and Anti-Vietnam War movements. The latter earned him 9 years of exile in Canada evading both the draft and an indictment. Freed of these burdens during the late seventies, he returned to the US and continued as a socialist organizer. His PhD in nuclear physics and his socialist outlook led him to advocate the expanded use of nuclear energy, despite the growing propaganda war against it. After several decades in France pursuing a career in computer security, Schoonover returned to the US, where he is actively organizing for a socialist solution to the current crisis.


MATTHEW EHRET

Matthew Ehret is the Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Patriot Review, BRI expert correspondent on Tactical Talk and has authored 3 volumes of ‘Untold History of Canada’ book series. Besides The Greanville Post, his works appear regularly on The Duran, Strategic Culture, Sott, Fort Russ, Zero Hedge, L.A. Review of Books, LeSaker.fr, Vigile Quebec, and South Front. In 2019 Matthew co-founded the Montreal-based Rising Tide Foundation. He can be reached at matt.ehret@tutamail.com


ED CURTIN Senior Contributing Editor

Edward Curtin is an  independent writer. http://edwardcurtin.com/ Educated in the classics, philosophy, literature, theology, and sociology, he has taught sociology at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. His writing on varied topics has appeared widely over many years. He writes as a public intellectual for the general public, not as a specialist for a narrow readership. He believes a non-committal sociology is an impossibility and therefore see all his work as an effort to enhance human freedom through understanding. He is the author of the new book, Seeking Truth in A Country of Lies - https://www.claritypress.com/product/seeking-truth-in-a-country-of-lies/
His website is at http://edwardcurtin.com/ .


CALEB MAUPIN
Caleb Maupin has worked as a journalist and political analyst for the last five years. He has reported from across the United States, as well as from Iran, the Gulf of Aden and Venezuela. He has been a featured speaker at many Universities, and at international conferences held in Tehran, Quito, and Brasilia. His writings have been translated and published in many languages including Farsi, Chinese, Russian, Arabic, Spanish, and Portuguese. He is originally from Ohio.


ERIC ZUESSE, Senior Contributing Editor

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity. Besides TGP, his reports and historical analyses are published on many leading current events and political sites, including The Saker, Huffpost, Oped News, and others. 


PETER KOENIG, Special Contributing Editor

Peter Koenig is an economist and geopolitical analyst. He is also a former World Bank staff and worked extensively around the world in the fields of environment and water resources. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for Global Research, ICH, RT, Sputnik, PressTV, The 4th Media (China), TeleSUR, The Vineyard of The Saker Blog, and other internet sites. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed – fiction based on facts and on 30 years of World Bank experience around the globe. He is also a co-author of The World Order and Revolution! – Essays from the Resistance.


PETER MAN, Special Contributing Editor
Peter Man was born and brought up in colonial Hong Kong. For his entire primary and secondary education, he attended La Salle Primary School and La Salle College, a prestigious English boys school run by Catholic Brothers. After graduating with an engineering degree from McMaster University in Canada, he became a pioneer of Chinese language television programming in his adopted country, establishing Canada's first national Chinese language television station. He later lived in China for two decades working in the broadcast and telecommunications technologies industry. During that period, he witnessed the country’s meteoric rise. Since retiring recently, he has decided to share his life experience by writing blogs, and he has written a science fiction novel "The Unconquered" which takes the reader across the entire history of China.


ANDREW KORYBKO

Andrew Korybko is a political analyst, journalist and a regular contributor to several online journals, as well as a member of the expert council for the Institute of Strategic Studies and Predictions at the People’s Friendship University of Russia. He specializes in Russian affairs and geopolitics, specifically the US strategy in Eurasia. His other areas of focus include tactics of regime change, color revolutions and unconventional warfare used across the world. His book, “Hybrid Wars: The Indirect Adaptive Approach To Regime Change”, extensively analyzes the situations in Syria and Ukraine and claims to prove that they represent a new model of strategic warfare being waged by the US. 


WILLIAM ASTORE

William Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and professor of history, is a TomDispatch regular and a senior fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN), an organization of critical veteran military and national security professionals. His personal blog is Bracing Views.


JIMMY DORE

Jimmy Dore, who hosts The Jimmy Dore Show on YouTube, with an audience of almost a million.  is an award-winning comedian/author and one of America's foremost leftist analysts and commentators. Dore authored the best seller “Your Country Is Just Not That Much Into You“ (Running Press 2014), was a writer/performer for the Off-Broadway hit “The Marijuana-Logues”,  Dore’s latest effort “Sentenced To Live” (HULU 2015) is Jimmy’s most powerful Hour of Stand-Up comedy to date. He effortlessly skewers our corporate media and bought politicians as he holds a mirror up to American culture.  Dore's program on YouTube, like other influential anti-establishment programs hosted by genuine leftwingers, is currently under algorithm attack by that platform and other social media, a fact that hinders his ability to reach more people.  Dore often collaborates on video analysis of current events with Max Blumenthal and Aaron Maté, affiliated with The Grayzone, another formidable left resource online. 


LEE CAMP,  Special Contributor

Lee Camp (born July 21, 1980) is an American stand-up comedian, writer, actor, and activist. He is the host of the weekly comedy news show Redacted Tonight with Lee Camp on RT America.

 


ALAN MACLEOD

Scottish real journalist Alan MacLeod is a Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent. He has also contributed to Fairness and Accuracy in ReportingThe GuardianSalonThe GrayzoneJacobin MagazineCommon Dreams the American Herald Tribune and The Canary


JOHN SCALES AVERY, Special Contributing Editor

John Avery (born in 1933 in Lebanon to American parents) is a theoretical chemist noted for his research publications in quantum chemistry, thermodynamics, evolution, and history of science. Since the early 1990s, Avery has been an active World peace activist. During these years, he was part of a group associated with the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. In 1995, this group received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts. Presently, he is an Associate Professor in quantum chemistry at the University of Copenhagen. His 2003 book Information Theory and Evolution set forth the view that the phenomenon of life, including its origin and evolution, that including human cultural evolution, has it background situated over thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and information theory. Avery’s parents were both born in the United States, in the state of Michigan, where they studied at the University of Michigan. His father studied medicine while his mother studied bacteriology. After graduation, his parents did research together at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Later, his father did research in a borderline area between physics and medicine with Arthur Holly Compton, discoverer of the "Compton effect", at the University of Chicago. In 1926, his father moved the family to Beirut, where his father worked as a professor of anatomy at the American University of Beirut. The family stayed in Beirut until the start of World War II. It was during these tumultuous years that John Scales Avery was born.


FRED REED

Fred Reed real oneFred Reed, who has referred to Oprah Winfrey as looking "like five hundred pounds of bear liver in a plastic bag," takes a jaundiced and highly irreverent view of all things sacred-journalism, marriage, affirmative action, federal scams, governmental uselessness, women, men, fellow reporters, and popular culture. On the other hand, he has a kind word for drunks, bar girls, and children. Neither a liberal nor a conservative-he describes these as "twin halves of the national lobotomy"-he is just Fred. He figures it is enough. Anything more would be multiple-personality disorder. Fred has spent many years doing things your mother wouldn't want you to do, such as living in alleys in Taipei, Bangkok, and Saigon, with some of the strangest people ever to crawl this weary earth. Once a war correspondent in Viet Nam and Cambodia, then for years a police reporter in places the media don't admit exist, he spent most of a decade writing a syndicated column on matters military. While he tends to write with wit, he has seen, he says, a lot of ugly things, and doesn't like the people responsible. He says so. Fred may charm or offend, but he'll keep your attention. "Funny, sharply observant and often deeply poignant, Fred Reed writes what a hell of a lot of Americans are thinking, but are afraid these days to say. He is delightfully beyond category for anyone with an open mind, which is probably why he lives in Mexico, far enough away that the politically correct of both camps cannot strangle him." --Joe Bageant, author of Deer Hunting with Jesus


BRUCE LERRO, Associate Editor
Bruce Lerro has taught for 25 years as an adjunct college professor of psychology at Golden Gate University, Dominican University and Diablo Valley College. He has applied a Vygotskian socio-historical perspective to his four books: From Earth-Spirits to Sky-Gods: the Socio-ecological Origins of Monotheism, Individualism and Hyper-Abstract Reasoning Power in Eden: The Emergence of Gender Hierarchies in the Ancient World Co-Authored with Christopher Chase-Dunn Social Change: Globalization from the Stone Age to the Present and Lucifer's Labyrinth: Individualism, Hyper-Abstract Thinking and the Process of Becoming Civilized He is also a representational artist specializing in pen-and-ink drawings. Bruce is a libertarian communist and lives in Olympia WA.


ISRAEL SHAMIR

ARAM MIRZAEI (in his own words)

My name is Aram Mirzaei, I’m 30 years old and live somewhere in Europe. Originally, I hail from western Iran, a place that is deeply rooted in my heart. Ever since my teenage years, I’ve had a passion for history and politics, a trait I inherited from my mother who was an Iranian revolutionary. Naturally, this passion made me choose to study political science all the way up to my Master’s degree. Having supported my country against foreign threats my entire adult life, I became an activist for the Resistance Axis when the Syrian War broke out in 2011 and have combined my passion for writing and politics, to contribute to the propaganda fight that runs in parallel with the fighting on the ground.


Hiroyuki Hamada grew up in Japan until the age of eighteen, then moved with his family to Wheeling, West Virginia where his father held a temporary post in the steel industry; the culture shock Hamada experienced was underscored by the linguistic gap, and it was through the study of drawing while in college that Hamada found an outlet to bridge the gap. He changed his major from psychology to studio art, then went on to earn a Masters in Fine Art from the University of Maryland.

Hamada has been awarded residencies at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, the Edward F. Albee Foundation/William Flanagan Memorial Creative Person's Center, the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the MacDowell Colony, Studios Midwest in Illinois, and the Virginia Center of the Creative Arts.In 1998, Hamada was the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant, and in 2009 he was awarded a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. The artist lives and works in East Hampton, New York.


PHIL FARRUGGIO, Contributing Editor

Philip A Farruggio is a son and grandson of Brooklyn , NYC longshoremen. He has been a free lance columnist since 2001, with over 400 of his work posted on sites like Global Research, Greanville Post, Off Guardian, Consortium News, Information Clearing House, Nation of Change, World News Trust, Op Ed News, Dissident Voice, , Activist Post, Sleuth Journal, Truthout and many others. His blog can be read in full on World News Trust., whereupon he writes a great deal on the need to cut military spending drastically and send the savings back to save our cities. Philip has a internet interview show, ' It's the Empire... Stupid' with producer Chuck Gregory, and can be reached at paf1222@bellsouth.net )


F.W. ENGDAHL, Special Contributing Editor

With a degree in politics from Princeton University, and graduate study in comparative economics at the University of Stockholm, F. William Engdahl has specialized for more than thirty years in geopolitical analysis of global events, with special focus on the interrelations of economics with politics. Among his best known books are, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics, published in German, French, English, Chinese, Russian, Czech, Korean, Turkish, Croatian, Slovenian. In 2010 he published Gods of Money: Wall Street and the Death of the American Century and in 2013 a new edition of his best-selling Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation completing a trilogy on the global control of oil, food and money. His book, Target China: How Washington and Wall Street Plan to Cage the Asian Dragon appeared in English in 2015 and has been a best-seller in China since 2014. His book, The Lost Hegemon: Whom the gods would destroy is about the CIA and political Islam and was published in March, 2016, as was the book, The Think Tanks. In early 2018 he has published Manifest Destiny: Democracy as Cognitive Dissonance dealing with the instrumentalization by the CIA and US Government of so-called democracy NGOs to make regime change around the world. Besides TGP, Engdahl contributes often to international publications and appears regularly on electronic media including in the US, Coast to Coast AM, Asia Times, FinancialSense.com, The Real News, Russia Today (RT) TV, Rossiya 24, Asia Inc., CCTV in China, Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun. He currently lives in Germany, writing, consulting on political risk to private clients, and lecturing. For more see www.williamengdahl.com.


FRANK SCOTT, Senior Contributing Editor

 


MICHAEL K. SMITH, Senior Contributing Editor

Michael K. Smith has published three books, "The Greatest Story Never Told - A People's History of the American Empire, 1945-1999," "Portraits of Empire," and "The Madness of King George. His fourth book, "Rise to Empire," is forthcoming. He holds a B.A. in Psychology and a Master's Degree in Humanities. He has lived in Central America, Mexico, and Japan. He currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.



Screen Shot 2015-10-14 at 10.15.44 AMMike Faulkner is a British citizen. He lives in London where for many years he taught history and political science at Barnet College, until his retirement in 2002. He has written a two-weekly column,  Letter from the UK, for TPJ Magazine since 2008. Over the years his articles have appeared in such publications as Marxism Today, Monthly Review and China Now. He is a regular visitor to the United States where he has friends and family in New York City. Contact Mike at mikefaulkner@greanvillepost.com


DMITRY ORLOV
Dmitry Orlov (born 1962) is a Russian-American engineer and writer on subjects related to "potential economic, ecological and political decline and collapse in the United States", something he has called "permanent crisis". Orlov believes collapse will be the result of huge military budgets, government deficits, an unresponsive political system and declining oil productionOrlov was born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) and moved to the United States at the age of 12. He has a BS in Computer Engineering and an MA in Applied Linguistics. He was an eyewitness to the collapse of the Soviet Union over several extended visits to his Russian homeland between the late 1980s and mid-1990s.  In 2005 and 2006 Orlov wrote a number of articles comparing the collapse-preparedness of the U.S. and the Soviet Union published on small Peak Oil related sites. Orlov’s article "Closing the 'Collapse Gap': the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US" was very popular at EnergyBulletin.Net.  He continues to write regularly on his “Club Orlov” blog and at EnergyBulletin.Net.  You can support Dmitry's work by contributing to his Patreon account.

JOHN RACHEL  has a B. A. in Philosophy, has traveled extensively, is a songwriter, music producer, neo-Marxist and a bipolar humanist. He has written eight novels and three political non-fiction books. His most recent polemic is "The Peace Dividend: The Most Controversial Proposal in the History of the World." His political articles have appeared at OpEdNews, Russia Insider, Greanville Post, and other alternative media outlets. Currently in development is a new novel set in Japan and another in Africa.

Author Rachel has been traveling through and living in over thirty-three countries since leaving America August of 2006. He is now somewhat rooted in a small traditional farming village in Japan near Osaka, where he proudly tends his small but promising vegetable garden and sets his non-existent watch by the  thrice-daily ringing of Shinto temple bells at a local shrine. You can follow his adventures and developing world view at:  http://jdrachel.com. "Scribo ergo sum."





Negative Prices Mark The End Of U.S. Shale

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.

DISPATCHES FROM MOON OF ALABAMA, BY "B"
This article is part of an ongoing series of dispatches from Moon of Alabama

Pretty soon these mastodon ships and equipment of the oil age may become worthless, and serve only other purposes or be consigned to the refuse heap of humanity. While there will be pain in some quarters, including nations like Venezuela, for the sake of the planet it can't come too soon. For over 100 years oil has driven wars and meddling across the globe, been a motivator and gangster tool of US foreign policy, and done incalculable damage to our environment.

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]ome companies had taken on the obligation to buy a large amount of West Texas Intermediate crude oil at a certain price. The price offered by the sellers looked cheap at the time when the contracts were signed. The settlement date of the contracts was April 21.

Usually such contacts are settled in money but this time the sellers insisted to physically delivery the oil to the buyers.

That was a problem. The buyers did not have the storage capacity to accept the oil he had bought months ago. They now had to accept a large amount they could not put anywhere. The only way out was to immediately sell it to someone else. But nobody was interested. All had their storage capacity already filled to the rim. The companies with the obligation to accept the oil from the producers then offered to pay others to take their oil.

When the price started to go into negative territory I offered extra storage:

Moon of Alabama @MoonofA - 18:09 UTC · Apr 20, 2020

If you give me 50 bucks, I'll let you fill up my car.

Quoted Tweet
Bloomberg @business · 17:51 UTC · Apr 20, 2020
BREAKING: Oil drops below $1 a barrel https://trib.al/l9YLU35

Offering to take the oil at -$50 was a bit too greedy. The WTI May option contract closed out at -$37.



For the first time in memory, US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil futures were trading in negative territory on the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex) on Monday, and US crude for May delivery lost $55.90 over the course of the trading day to close at negative $37.63/bbl.

One insider said the drastic drop was in part the result of the forced liquidation of a position in the futures market “at any price.” The contract has one more day to trade as it expires Apr. 21. The May contract had an exceptionally high open interest of 109,000 contracts at the start of Monday trading.

But fundamentally, the price reflects extremely distressed crude cargoes that are stranded with refineries ramping down runs, as they cannot sell products in a market where demand has collapsed from consumers who are staying home to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The steep negative price “means storage is full,” said Albert Helmig, CEO of consultancy Grey House and former vice president of the Nymex.

Cushing is the delivery and pricing point of US oil futures and has an operational capacity of some 70 million barrels of oil. It held 55 million bbl last week.

Several large consumer countries are in lockdown. Global air travel is down by more than 80%. There is only little demand for gasoline or other refined products.

The WTI benchmark, which reflects the price in landlocked Cushing, Oklahoma, was not the only trade index in trouble. West Canadian Select oil also traded in negative territory. Contracts for WTI deliveries in June were still positive at $20/barrel as were Brent oil contracts ($25/bl) which reflect delivery at sea.

U.S. shale oil producers have already cut back some of their production but they will have to cut much more. The Baker Hughes count of active U.S. oil and gas rigs fell from more than 1,000 active rigs last year to 529 active rigs on Friday. I expect it to drop below 100 during the next few weeks.


More drilling will have to stop because the refineries simply can not sell their products:

The trainwreck in Cushing is the result of various factors coming to a head. Refiners are cutting runs faster than upstream players can shut in production, and differentials have been signaling oil to go to Cushing for weeks, even prompting some midstream operators to reverse infrastructure.

In addition, market sources say that inexperienced traders hold high positions too close to expiration, and that some contracts stipulate average prices for trades ahead of expiration.

When a futures trader holds a position this close to expiry, chances are high they will need to deliver physical crude. They can do so via an exchange futures for physical (EFP) arrangement, one trader said, but that requires finding a physical player willing to take delivery.

This means that even under normal circumstances, there is a reconciliation between physical and futures prices close to expiry. And physical prices have been underperforming so-called paper barrels for the past several weeks, reflecting fundamental dynamics and causing that reconciliation to be abrupt and violent.

It costs about $45/bl to produce shale oil. No U.S. shale producer is currently in profitable territory. All are already highly indebted. They still hesitate to shut down their wells. Once shut down the wells tend to clog up. They will need expensive rework to be reopened. That is unlikely to be profitable during the next two to five years if ever.

The stone age did not end for a lack of stones. The oil age will not end for a lack of oil. Oil demand has probably seen its global peak. Alternatives have been developed. The pandemic will likely be with us for some two years. It will change the behavior of many people.

There is no reason to expect crude oil to ever again reach its previous peak price of more than $100/bl.

The total debt of U.S. shale oil producers is estimated to be above $200 billion. None will be paid back. The carnage may well lead to collapses in the banking system.

All countries which have their budgets depending on oil sales are now in deep trouble. As they lose their importance as producers and consumers the global policies around them will also change.

The pandemic only amplifies the existing structural problems and imbalances in our markets and societies. It is likely to leave permanent marks on them.

Posted by b on April 21, 2020 at 8:01 UTC | Permalink


When it takes the equivalent of one barrel of energy to produce one barrel of energy it will be lights out.

Comments Sampler

It's interesting, although terrifying, to watch the world we have all known be strangled by fear right before our eyes. Who knew so few would even put up a fight?

Posted by: In my crosshairs | Apr 21 2020 8:12 utc | 1

Some have spoken a lot about petrodollars and the US's need to make sure oil is traded in dollars. This is supposedly why the US invaded Iraq and destroyed Libya...they both had the idea to use other currencies.

now that oil can't be given away for free what will happen to all those dollars floating around the earth?

if someone who understands how this all works can offer some insight, I for one would be very grateful

Posted by: dan of steele | Apr 21 2020 8:25 utc | 2

Bigger picture: "UN recognized" Tripoli gov + Erdo making progresses against Heftar again. Erdo in Brussels 6 weeks ago. Officially he was "summoned" because of his use of the migrants against Greece and the EU, but in fact he was probably offered a juicy deal.
Nice covid smokescreen, no wonder they let it develop until it was too late to hide
https://apnews.com/7ea9da6e5943ac9c5c03fa02c88db21c
This event in Lyon provoked one of the biggest clusters (the so-called Auvergne-Rhône Alpes) next to the evangelical one-week gathering in Bas-Rhin region.  Someone here said "in some regions" of France you can't go out without a written letter (printed or made) with 1 of the 3 reasons allowing you daily to go out, but it is everywhere in France.

Posted by: Mina | Apr 21 2020 8:42 utc | 3

dan of steele

Learn about Eurodollars. Understand why USD is rising against most currencies. Learn why Yuan is not freely convertible.

The US banking system is the one of the best capitalized banking system today. Check out how well capitalized the Chinese banking system is? Or the European. Understand why Deutsche Bank is trading at the bottom of the barrel?

Posted by: ab initio | Apr 21 2020 8:47 utc | 5

Posted by: ab initio | Apr 21 2020 8:47 utc | 5

In the US the debt bubble moved from the banks to the corporate sector, it is now at an all time high.

Moreover, for the US economy to run, even in good times trillion dollar deficits are needed.

This year, it needed 19 % budget deficit and 2 trillion Fed balance sheet expaansion in order to simply stop the US economy from collapsing.

Posted by: Passer by | Apr 21 2020 9:32 utc | 6

@dan of steel #2

Another one from another point of view..
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/04/20/revolutionary-times-and-systemic-collapse-the-system-cannot-handle-it/

Posted by: ARN | Apr 21 2020 10:01 utc | 7

What -$37/bbl oil means to you:

Oil futures paper contracts market (in normal times of stable->rising oil prices and plenty of tank storage capacity a simple safe "buy low, hold, sell high" investment vehicle used heavily by investment banks, hedge funds, ETFs and teachers', municipal employees', etc, retirement/pension funds) explained in 5 minutes by Chris Martenson starts at ~minute 35:00:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8Pv77R3g1E

Posted by: gm | Apr 21 2020 10:36 utc | 8

'Peak' oil?
Peak oil Glut.
How did someone make such an error and probably pocketed millions making it?
It was always bilge....
The energy equivalent of global warming?

Posted by: Emily | Apr 21 2020 11:43 utc | 10

- The silver/gold ratio took a HEAVY beating today. Doesn't bode well for the financial markets ..................

Posted by: Willy2 | Apr 21 2020 11:51 utc | 12

Similar to dan of steele's question, is inflation going to be a possible concern?

Posted by: Scotch Bingeington | Apr 21 2020 11:56 utc | 13

Thanks b. This looks like an interesting study on how derivatives can be unwound.

Posted by: financial matters | Apr 21 2020 12:03 utc | 15

Can't wait for my local Oil Company's offer to fill my home heating oil tank for free.

Posted by: Enrico Malatesta | Apr 21 2020 12:03 utc | 16

Emily, We may still be at or around peak oil. That does not mean that all of the heavily indebted countries and oil companies won't pump what's left as fast and hard as they can. Now you have to stir in a massive plunge in demand to the equation. Seems to me that all newer oil discoveries are deep sea or shale. All of which require much more energy to produce then say thirty years ago. When it takes the equivalent of one barrel of energy to produce one barrel of energy it will be lights out.

Posted by: arby | Apr 21 2020 12:10 utc | 17

dan of steele @2

The petrodollar was not in and of itself the mechanism that the US used to "export debt" and enrich itself off global trade. Rather, the petrodollar was the mechanism used to lock-in the US$ as the global reserve currency. If you wanted oil, you needed US$. After that it was just convenient to use US$ for other internationally traded commodities as well. Of course, this made even more sense way back in the distant past of the middle of last century because most of the international trade in manufactured goods was for American products, for which you'd have to use dollars to buy anyway.

The empire fanbois will cook up all kinds of explanations for why the dollar will remain the Global Reserve Currency in order to reassure themselves of the empire's continued hegemony, but the fact is that all of the "locks" locking other countries into that regime are now gone. Countries can choose to walk away now whereas in the past that would mean giving up access to oil and no longer importing all of those awesome things that the US used to make. That is not a barrier anymore.

Posted by: William Gruff | Apr 21 2020 12:10 utc | 18

I also think that the way the US has abused the privilege of having the world's reserve currency will be the cause of its downfall. More and more it is being used as a weapon to more and more countries. This will not hold.

Posted by: arby | Apr 21 2020 12:15 utc | 19

Negative Prices Mark The End Of U.S. Shale...
...and AmeriKKKa's thuggish approach to diplomacy?

It would be fun to be a fly on the wall to hear Washington's Right-wing Cranks deciding who to blame for letting Putin get his hands on the Oil Market steering wheel...

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Apr 21 2020 12:22 utc | 20

"There is no reason to expect crude oil to ever again reach its previous peak price of more than $100/bl." There's a hostage to fortune. No matter that I spent the last two years preparing for this downturn/crash, I still don't believe what is happening, people don't want to understand what's coming.

Posted by: ramon | Apr 21 2020 12:30 utc | 21

 


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"b" is Moon of Alabama's founding (and chief) editor.  This site's purpose is to discuss politics, economics, philosophy and blogger Billmon's Whiskey Bar writings. Moon Of Alabama was opened as an independent, open forum for members of the Whiskey Bar community.  Bernhard )"b") started and still runs the site. Once in a while you will also find posts and art from regular commentators. You can reach the current administrator of this site by emailing Bernhard at MoonofA@aol.com

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 ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS

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China, Bolivia and Venezuela are proof that social democracy cannot thrive in the global capitalist order.

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.

China, Bolivia and Venezuela are proof that social democracy cannot thrive in the global capitalist order. China Rising Radio Sinoland 191116


Pictured above: the US orchestrated coup in Bolivia is being led by a White supremist, fascist, Christian fundamentalists, just the type of jackbooted brown shirts the West loves, in order to plunder and rape countries around the world. Washington, London and Paris put fascists and mass murderers in power, because they make Wall Street billions in criminal blood money. Pictured center above is one of their psychopathic henchmen, Luis Fernando Camacho, giving a Nazi salute and wearing the Nazi Iron Cross. Notice Jesus Christ is portrayed on the flag on the right. Racist inspired blood is going to flood the Native streets of Bolivia. Read this article and get goosebumps of revulsion (https://thegrayzone.com/2019/11/11/bolivia-coup-fascist-foreign-support-fernando-camacho/).

Sixteen years with the people on the streets of China, Jeff

Downloadable SoundCloud podcast (also at the bottom of this page), YouTube video, as well as being syndicated on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, RUvid and Ivoox (links below),


The US-orchestrated, fascist, racist overthrow of the popularly elected socialist government in Bolivia is depressing, but not surprising (https://www.rt.com/op-ed/473181-morales-bolivia-american-coup/). As a tweet shown in this article says, it’s nothing new, as this is US coup #5 in Bolivia,

1952, 1964, 1970, 1980, 2019. Brought to you by the Bolivian oligarchy and the CIA.

Western and White Supremist Bolivian capitalists will now plunge it into another Libya, while exterminating uncounted thousands of Native Americans (https://www.rt.com/news/473494-putin-bolivia-morales-libya/), as Russian President Vladimir Putin is already warning.

Before 2006, Bolivians, like most peoples of Central and South America, were sodomized, plundered, exterminated, enslaved (mostly) Natives, watching helplessly as their natural and human resources enriched the local White elite 1% (ongoing colonial, European family lines, who started settling in the 15th century), Washington, London and Paris. In the last 13 years, Native President Evo Morales’ socialist administration has reduced extreme poverty from 38% to 15%, and overall poverty from 60% to 35% (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/07/how-a-populist-president-helped-bolivias-poor-but-built-himself-a-palace). Socialism shrank the GINI index by an eyepopping 19% and tripled the median household income, something poorer and poorer Euranglolanders can only dream about. (https://www.thenation.com/article/economics-socialism-bolivia-evo/). Until this week, the economy was the fastest growing in the region, averaging over 4% a year (https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/BOL/bolivia/gdp-growth-rate). This will all be stolen back now, post-capitalist coup.

How did this happen? They nationalized key sectors of the economy (stolen land, oil, gas, copper, lithium) and began processing their mineral wealth into value added exports, as explained by deposed Morales here (https://www.rt.com/news/473353-evo-morales-imf-exports-oas/). This money was plowed back into infrastructure (schools, hospitals, rural roads) and social services (health care, education and retirement pensions) to improve the quality of life for the 99%, at the expense of the 1%. They did it without being plundered by IMF-World Bank gangster banksters and their corrupt loans that enrich Wall Street and each country’s local elites. Read John Perkin’s book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, which he is now offering for free (https://www.academia.edu/7614432/John_Perkins_Economic_Hit_Man_Summary_of_Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man_About_John_Perkins_Author_of_Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man). You can see how the global elite destroy entire economies to starve and exterminate millions of mostly dark-skinned poor, in order to plunder trillions of dollars in assets. Another scathing exposé of how Western elites legally rape the weak, in the guise of the “Liberal World Order” is Paul Blustein’s And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out), which was being replayed again by Argentina’s neoliberal ex-president Mauricio Macri (https://www.gettextbooks.com/isbn/9781586483814/). More about this snake in a suit below.

Postwar, all of this shows how the transfer of trillions of dollars of human and natural capital are extracted and exploited by Eurangloland, so their poorer and poorer citizens can borrow printed money to buy Huawei/Apple mobile phones, Haier appliances and Lenovo/Dell computers on credit, all manufactured in communist-socialist China, while their elite owners become even bigger trillionaires and billionaires. When the current Western capitalist hyperbubble implodes in the near future, these same citizens will be driven even further into lower standards of living, but not communist-socialist Chinese, North Koreans, Laos, Vietnamese, Cubans, Eritreans and Iranians.

This brings us to the crux of my article. Western Europe, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Mozambique, Angola and all other countries that practice social democracy simply cannot thrive in the global capitalist order, without one key ingredient, and it may not be what you think.

Yes, you can nationalize core industries and second, repatriate stolen land to build agriculture, infrastructure, development and industrialization. The prior was done by Europe and every other social democracy after World War II. The latter was done by China, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and many others, or former Soviet states like the “Stans” and Belarus, which just kept the land in public hands.

Today, after 75 years of relentless Big Lie Propaganda and neoliberal treachery, almost all of Europe’s key industries have been de-nationalized and much of its public assets have been privatized for profit, in the name of “free market” dogma.

So, land and industry are not enough. Even being armed to the teeth, like Venezuelans is not enough. The US and Europe cannot invade or overthrow the people’s will there, like they do most everywhere else, Bolivia being a prime example. If NATO tried to go in, it would get its butt whipped by many thousands of neighborhood militias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colectivo_(Venezuela) ). When friends like Rory Hall at The Daily Coin (https://thedailycoin.org/) ardently support gun rights in the United States, I can see his point.  Because Venezuela is locked and loaded, it is successfully drawing a line in the geopolitical sands. This is thanks to murdered former president Hugo Chavez (https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/03/14/murder-chavez-cia-and-dea-cover-their-tracks/), who understood Mao Zedong’s rejoinder that revolution must be defended by the barrel of a gun. Thus, Venezuelans will not be occupied by NATO.

But, the West is killing and starving tens of thousands of Venezuelans every year with genocidal economic sanctions and stealing billions of dollars in overseas assets. Sanctions and piracy are nothing more than warfare and crimes against humanity, making a mockery of the United Nations charter.

So, how can social democracies thrive in the face of global capitalist terrorism? The secret to survive and hopefully thrive is to nationalize the media. Venezuela’s media is owned by the same White supremist local elites who are destroying the country, with the help of the CIA and its thousands of faux NGOs. Ditto Bolivia (https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/bolivia-created-over-four-thousand-accounts-to-legitimize-coup-20191113-0011.html). We can see the suffering, slaughter and chaos, as a result.

The following story illustrates the point. When neoliberal thug Macri got elected president of Argentina in 2015, only to destroy the economy with tens of billions of corrupt IMF-World Bank loans that went straight into his and the local elites’ pockets, and on to Wall Street, I asked my friend, Moti Nissani (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/search/?q=moti%20nissani), who lives there, how the people could be duped into voting for such a blatant gangster.

This, after 10 years of socialist success, turning the economy around for the 99% and paying off billions of 1990s IMF-World Bank theft. Moti told me Argentina’s national media is owned lock, stock and barrel by the elites and it proved once again that Big Lie propaganda works. Tell lie after lie long enough, over and over, and people will accept it as reality, regardless of the facts and proof in their daily lives. Argentina’s elites vomited anti-socialist, pro-neoliberal Western Big Lie Propaganda on the masses and after ten years of being brainwashed, they elected to commit collective socioeconomic suicide.

Socialists just won to replace Macri, and like after the 1990s, will again be stuck fixing Wall Street’s gang bang in the making. But Washington, London and Paris will do everything possible to destroy them, while the local elite media will crank up the Big Lie Propaganda Machine (BLPM) into hyperdrive, to do the same.

This is why Hugo Chavez created the Pan-American, state owned media company, TeleSUR (https://www.telesurenglish.net/index.html). The problem is, with Latin America’s media being owned by gangster elites, they can exclude it in their TV programming and censor it in their press and on the internet.

The only countries hanging on, in a world of global capitalist pain, are the ones that openly tell their people they own and manage the media via the state, in the interest of social harmony, economic prosperity and to protect the nation from Eurangloland’s nonstop sabotage. This includes China, North Korea, Laos (where my wife and I just spent a few days and really enjoyed it), Vietnam, Cuba, Iran, Eritrea and I suspect most of the former Soviet republics. They all obviously know these famous quotes by heart…

Former CIA director William Casey famously said,

We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.

Ex-CIA director William Colby spoke the truth too,

The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.

Carl Bernstein was told by a high-ranking CIA officer,

One journalist is worth twenty agents [spies in the field].

I used these three quotes when writing The China Trilogy (see below). They and all my research prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the West has a very highly orchestrated press and tightly censored media, just like George Orwell and Aldous Huxley predicted. Another book I quoted in The China Trilogy is Edward Bernays’ Propaganda (easy to download for free online), where he truthfully stated,

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of… We are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

Can it be any clearer than that, my dear Euranglolanders? Yet most of my fellow Westerners will go to the mat that they have “free press” and “liberty”. It’s a cruel mirage. When the 1% controls the media, the elites can turn the people into zombified sheeple, enriching themselves with Orwellian perpetual war, while keeping the masses entertained to death. Sheldon Wolin called this inverted totalitarianism, something I’ve also included in my books, because clueless citizens cannot recognize or admit the truth slapping them in the face. His book, Democracy Inc. is an essential primer to understand the simulacrum world Westerners live in (https://www.gettextbooks.com/isbn/9780691135663/).

Edward Bernays simply took the Nazi Big Lie playbook, then called it “publicity” and “public relations”. The CIA-Western corporate media adopted it very successfully to brainwash unsuspecting billions around the world – but not in China, North Korea, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, Eritrea and former Soviet republics.

In my interview with James Bradley, he said that Western media is state managed and controlled (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/04/06/james-bradley-tells-it-like-it-is-on-china-rising-radio-sinoland-180406/), namely by the CIA, NSA, the Departments of Defense and State. Douglas Valentine said the same thing in our discussion (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2019/07/02/douglas-valentine-on-china-rising-radio-sinoland-the-cia-is-global-capitalisms-secret-gangster-army-190702/). Hell, the CIA owns and finances (with its global heroin and cocaine empire) billions of dollars in media companies and outlets around the world. How can we expect anything differently (https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-cia-and-the-media-50-facts-the-world-needs-to-know/5471956)?

France’s Yellow Vests notwithstanding (no surprise – whose continuing protests in the thousands have been completely flushed down the West’s Orwellian Memory Hole, https://thesaker.is/?s=Ramin+Mazaheri+Yellow+Vests), Eurangloland is a lost cause, but any other country that does not want to be raped and plundered by gangster bankster Wall Street, invaded and occupied by NATO and have their people exterminated and starved, needs to nationalize its media 100%, like China, Iran and elsewhere. Otherwise, the devolution into a neoliberal, police state hellhole, like Eurangloland, or color revolution chaos, butchery and theft, like much of Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Ukraine and too many others to count, is all but guaranteed.

The other policy they need to adopt is a strong NGO control law, like Russia, China and India have done (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2016/04/30/baba-beijing-lowers-the-communist-boom-on-foreign-ngos-china-rising-radio-sinoland-16-4-30/). Some NGOs do good work, but too many are nothing more than color revolution shell fronts for the CIA-media complex to destroy countries from the inside. Today’s Western destruction of Hong Kong is a prime example (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2019/07/08/confucius-laozi-and-buddha-are-humbly-winning-against-the-imperial-west-in-troubled-hong-kong-china-rising-radio-sinoland-190708/ and https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2019/07/20/wests-hong-kong-color-revolution-still-making-a-mess-of-the-place-and-totally-backfiring-china-rising-radio-sinoland-190720/).

In closing, the one exception to this is Russia, which does not have 100% nationalized media. However, for economic prosperity, social harmony and to protect the people from Western sabotage, the government works hard to control and censor destabilizing (fake) news, as this article shows (https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/tech-giant-censorship/), staying on top of Twitter, Google and Facebook propaganda.

Russia is a social democracy, with a large, successful people owned industrial sector and many social services for the 99% from the Soviet era. But, unlike Bolivia and Ukraine, it is avoiding the West’s color revolution poison pill, because since 1999, Russia has gone from strength to strength, under the inspired leadership of patriotic President Vladimir Putin. But like all social democracies, the problem is what happens if another Western whore Boris Yeltsin succeeds Putin, and returns Russia to its dystopian Wall Street rape of the 1990s? Then what? It only took Macri four short years to bring Argentina back onto its groveling knees. Without a 100% nationalized media, Russians had better be demanding that Putin & Russian Patriots Inc. work overtime to censor all the Western overthrow garbage that is put in Cyrillic ink and on the airwaves.

I would love to hear what my good friend Andrei Raevsky thinks about this at The Saker (http://thesaker.is/), because let’s be honest: without China’s, Russia’s and Iran’s continued anti-imperial independence and socialist success into the 21st century, humanity can kiss its ass goodbye!

ABOUT JEFF BROWN

Punto Press released China Rising - Capitalist Roads, Socialist Destinations (2016); and for Badak Merah, Jeff authored China Is Communist, Dammit! – Dawn of the Red Dynasty (2017).
Jeff can be reached at China Rising, jeff@brownlanglois.com, Facebook, Twitter and Wechat/Whatsapp: +86-13823544196.

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