In today's #vatniksoup, I'll be introducing an Australian "citizen journalist", astrologer and conspiracy theorist, Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz).
She's best-known for promoting outlandish conspiracy theories, and for blaming the US and the West for absolutely everything.
1/24
First, let's take a closer look where Caitlin is coming from - between 2009 and 2011, she was mostly tweeting about spiritual teachers and gurus like Eckhart Tolle and Osho. In 2008 she published a book on astrology.
2/24
Her first somewhat political tweets were about Bernie Sanders, whom she called "impressive" in the debates. After Hillary won the nomination, Caitlin started promoting all kinds of weird conspiracy theories, including the one where Sanders' family was held as a hostage and..
3/24
..he had to endorse Clinton to "to get him and his family out alive". From there on she claimed that the whole thing was staged, that Hillary and Donald Trump are actually friends, and that the whole presidential race is just a ruse to stop the leftists' rise to power.
4/24
Soon after she started promoting the Pizzagate conspiracy theory, which suggested that high-ranking Democrats were involved in a human trafficking and child sex ring. Pizzagate is generally considered to be predecessor of the QAnon cult.
5/24
A lot of the conspiracy theories Johnstone promoted during these times came from right-wing outlets like InfoWars and Project Veritas, and in Jul 2017, she published a blog post titled "Lefties Need To Stop Being Shy About Working With The Anti-Establishment Right".
6/24
And once again, the horseshoe theory becomes reality.
In addition to Pizzagate, she's promoted various other conspiracy theories, including "9/11 was a false flag", the murder of Seth Rich and the DNC leaks, "there is no Uyghur genocide", and that the chemical attacks...
7/24
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..."frightened and defenseless" and "at the mercy of alien force." But remember, USA bad.
When it comes to Ukraine, Chomsky has stripped the country from all kinds of agency and sovereignty. He's said that "Ukraine is not a free actor; they’re dependent on what the US...
8/25
...determines," and that the US is only using Ukraine to weaken Russia. In an interview with Jeremy Scahill, Chomsky claimed that "Crimea is off the table. We may not like it. Crimeans apparently do like it," suggesting that the Crimeans want to be part of Russia.
9/25
The annexation was a direct violation of the Budapest memorandum & violated the international law. "Crimeans" are hardly a cohesive group of people & the referendum in 2014 was declared invalid by the UN. The majority of Crimean population supported joining Ukraine in 1991.
10/25
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American author and academic, Noam Chomsky. He's best-known for his long history as a political commentator and left-wing activist, and for his staunch criticism of the US foreign policy since the 1960s.
1/25
Chomsky's antiwar activism started around 1962, when he was protesting against the US involvement in the Vietnam War. He started writing essays and eventually books, targeted mostly to the American "New Left" movement. His criticism towards US interventionism continued...
2/25
...during the 70s and the 80s, resisting US involvement in conflicts like Nicaraguan Contra War and the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Since then, everything he does or says is shrouded with rabid anti-Americanism. He seems to consider the US as the "root of all evil", ...
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce a US non-profit organization CODEPINK (@codepink), and its founders Jodie Evans (@MsJodieEvans) and Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin). It's best-known for its anti-US stance & for its support of totalitarian regimes around the world.
1/23
In 2006, Benjamin said in an interview with Tucker Carlson that Hugo Chávez, the President of Venezuela, hadn't eroded freedom of speech and civil rights in the country, calling it a "myth". Carlson blamed Medea for "the squelching of minority views", to which Medea...
2/23
..replied: "They [a local TV network] falsified information. They got people out on the street." Later, Chávez's regime seized control of the Supreme Court and undercut the ability of journalists,human rights defenders & other Venezuelans to exercise their fundamental rights.3/23
"the US empire is the root of all evil around the world". This rabid anti-US stance is the basis of all her writings & not-so-surprisingly her anti-imperialistic stance does not include Russia or China: in a Star Wars-y way there is only one evil empire, and that is the US.
9/24
In her bio, she says that she's "geared toward awakening human consciousness" and that she writes about "the end of illusions". She claims that on the collective level we are "driven by propaganda", and on individual level by our ego. I mean, the whole thing reads like it..
10/24
...was written by a high-schooler who just took their first class of Philosophy and smoked some weed.
The interesting thing here is that while she was mostly tweeting about miracles, leftist politics and astrology, nobody gave a shit. Zero likes, zero retweets.
In today's #vatniksoup, I'll introduce an American conspiracy theorist, lawyer and politician, Robert Kennedy Jr. (@RobertKennedyJr). He's best-known for being the nephew of JFK, and for constantly promoting conspiratorial and false information.
1/25
Robert comes from the prestigious Kennedy family, and his father was the senator and attorney general Robert F. Kennedy. He was just 9-years-old when his uncle, JFK, was assassinated. Five years later, his father was also murdered.
2/25
During the early 80s, Robert had to resign as the Assistant District Attorney for Manhattan after failing his bar exam. A year later he was charged with heroin possession, and went into rehab. He soon became active in the environmental justice, and started lobbying and...
In today's #vatniksoup and in the second edition of "Where are they now?", I'll do an update on some of your favorite vatniks around the world & report on what they've been up to.
If there's someone or something you'd like to hear more about, let me know in the comments👇
1/21
Let's start with some revelations regarding Russia's hybrid warfare operations in the West. The recent collaboration between Nordic public broadcasting companies revealed that the Russians have been focusing their espionage efforts around critical infrastructure in the...
2/21
...Nordic countries. These include wind farms, oil platforms, and undersea cables.