In today's #vatnik soup (thanks Mike Edward,.@OpsATX for the name!) I'll be introducing the Editor of the @TheGrayzoneNews, Max Blumenthal (.@MaxBlumenthal). In his previous life, he reported on prestigious publications such as NYT, LA Times and Al Jazeera English... 1/10
...often writing about the 🇮🇱-🇵🇸 conflict and doing hot takes on 🇺🇸 politics. In his political views,Max's worldview appears to be on the far-left spectrum (the 🇺🇸 far-left, not the European kind)and for example in the early 00's he wrote a lot about immigration issues in 🇺🇸.2/10
Later in his career he has been appearing on 🇷🇺 state-owned Sputnik and RT, but also actively spreading disinformation on his "news" website The Grayzone.He has defended RT in an interview with Tucker Carlson,stating that the media company does not spread Kremlin propaganda. 3/10
In 2015 Blumenthal made a trip to Moscow RT's 10 Years on Air anniversary party. The trip was allegedly paid for by the Kremlin and the party was attended by people like Vladimir Putin, Michael Flynn and Ken Livingstone. 4/10
His 2009 best-selling book Republican Gomorrah was inspired by Erich Fromm's work on people willing to give up their freedom via an identification with authoritarian and charismatic leaders - I'm sure you can spot the irony here. 5/10
Max has made bold claims on his website, e.g. that the Syria Civil Defence aka The White Helmets were connected to Al-Qaeda and that they were backed by Western governments and PR groups. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Hel…
6/10
He has also published an article about Khan Shaykhun chemical attack, casting doubt on the Syrian government's responsibility. UN investigation disagreed with Mr Blumenthal's view on the issue and stated that the Syrian government was indeed responsible for the attack.
7/10
He has also claimed already on 26th of February, 2022, that the Ukraine's regular military has been "vanquished", and that "Washington seeks to fund a CIA-backed insurgency to ratchet up civil war and destabilize Russia's frontiers".
In addition, Max has suggested that the Mariupol theater airstrike that killed women and children was a "false flag attack" by Ukrainian AZOV batallion to trigger NATO intervention. thegrayzone.com/2022/03/18/bom…
9/10
Ukrainian fact-checking organization StopFake lists Blumenthal as a pro-Russia journalist who promotes Russian propaganda. stopfake.org/en/russia-s-un…
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In this first (and maybe last?) Basiji Soup, we’ll look at… the Islamic Republic of Iran, its disinformation operations, its hypocrisy, how it sells its atrocities as virtue and its repression as morality, how it serves the Kremlin, and the current protests against it.
1/20
Basijis are members of the most fanatical part of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). In a broader sense: Iranian regime loyalists & propagandists. They may be fewer than vatniks or wumaos, but the goal is the same: destabilize the West to protect a brutal regime.
2/20
The regime oppressing Iran is a “theocratic” authoritarian state around a “Supreme Leader” hiding behind religion to justify its crimes: censorship, repression, executions, torture and terror — similar to Russia and its “holy war” against Ukraine.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce our first Czech vatnik, Tomio Okamura. He’s best known for building a political career on xenophobia while being of mixed origins himself, and for pushing Kremlin narratives in Czechia, a country otherwise very supportive of Ukraine.
1/19
Okamura was born in Tokyo in 1972 to a Japanese-Korean father and Czech mother. He spent part of his childhood in Japan, and part in a Czechoslovak foster home where he was heavily bullied. His mixed origins made it difficult for him to fit in either country.
2/19
Nonetheless, after working odd jobs in Japan, Tomio returned to Czechia and became a successful entrepreneur in Japanese tourism. He then rose in politics: Senator in 2012, MP in 2013, he founded two parties: Dawn of Direct Democracy and SPD (Freedom and Direct Democracy).
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll introduce an American billionaire, real estate developer, and wannabe diplomat, Steve Witkoff. He’s best known for trying to sell Ukraine to Putin and for helping Trump sell this treason and encouragement of genocidal war as “peace”.
1/20
Steve studied law and political science at Hofstra University in New York. After law school, he worked as a real estate attorney, which led him into property acquisitions and development. He first met Trump in the 1980s when Trump was a client of his real estate law firm.
2/20
In 1997, Witkoff founded the Witkoff Group, a New York–based real estate development and investment firm. The firm has owned and developed dozens of properties in New York and other major US cities, making Witkoff quite wealthy, with some interesting business connections.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, our first on a non-human vatnik, we’ll talk about… Grok @grok. It’s best known for turning into Mecha-Hitler and Mecha-Putler and for defending its vatnik master, Elon Musk, at all costs, up to being willing to sacrifice the rest of mankind for him.
1/24
Let’s start with an introduction into how Large Language Models (LLMs) work, and the new “arguing with your toaster” phenomenon. LLMs like Grok are Artificial Intelligence (AI) but not the way we had imagined — a new form of intelligence that would somehow think like us.
2/24
Instead, LLMs are basically “guessing engines” and search engines trained on a massive dataset to give you the output you expect: they are imitating intelligence rather than being an actual intelligence. They’re chatbots generating responses pretending to be a helpful AI.
Robert Amsterdam is also a registered (and well-paid!) agent of Maduro’s Venezuela, the socialist regime and ally of Russia which Tucker Carlson has recently defended for some reason, shocking many of his right-wing supporters.
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we’ll explain the context of the upcoming Budapest Blunder, and how it follows the infamous Alaska Fiasco from two months ago and Trump’s absurd delaying of serious aid to Ukraine and effective sanctions on Russia for the past nine months.
1/20
Two months ago, Trump embarrassed the United States by rolling out the red carpet for war criminal dictator Putin and overall acting like a pathetic servant eager to meet his master. Of course, the Alaska Fiasco didn’t bring peace any closer.
Worse, the main outcome of the humiliation was to delay serious sanctions, which the US Congress, in rare bipartisan unity against Russia, was on the verge of passing. Two weeks by two weeks, Trump Always Chickens Out, postponing any real pressure on Putin for 9 months now.