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", ...
3/25
...regardless of their involvement and role. He is the ultimate epitome of a "whataboutist", and there simply is no discussion which he can't turn into US bashing.
In 1988 he co-authored his best-known book, Manufacturing Consent. It outlines a propaganda model for...
4/25
...understanding how the mainstream media manipulates people. He argued that the mass media in the US are "ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function".
In 2011 he told the journalist George Monbiot that calling Srebrenica Massacre a...
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...genocide "cheapens the word". He also denied a report by Ed Vulliamy on the existence of Bosnian concentration camps, stating that Vulliamy "got caught up in a story that probably wasn't true". But it wasn't the first genocide Chomsky had denied. He also criticized...
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In today’s Vatnik Soup, made together with chef invité @Martinlaineolen, we discuss the extensive links between pedophile sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and Russian officials and intelligence operatives, and how Western politicians reinforced these links.
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While MAGA influencers remain silent on Epstein, pro-Kremlin propagandists and bot farms have expectedly launched an anti-Ukraine online operation, spreading fake narratives that connect Ukraine, its politicians, and the late sex trafficker.
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But the emails paint a very different picture: in reality, Epstein had very close connections with Russian officials and intelligence operatives, and even built bridges and arranged meetings between MAGA figures and the Kremlin.
In this 5th Debunk of the Day, we’ll discuss something that sounds great in theory, but was completely turned upside-down by the tankie kind of vatnik: anti-imperialism. More consistent anti-imperialists call this the “anti-imperialism of idiots”. 1/5
“Anti-imperialism” was popularized by Lenin, who saw imperialism as the ultimate stage of capitalism. Ironically, the largest empire is now… Putin’s Russia, proud heir to both Lenin’s Soviet Union and to the Tsarist Empire. 2/5
Indeed, Russia is an empire that is still ruled by a de facto all-powerful Tsar, that still proudly flies its imperial flag, that still dreams of expanding its already huge territory through brutal conquest and colonization. 3/5
In this 4th Debunk of the Day, we’ll refute an absolute classic of vatnik BS, the crown jewel of peak dishonesty: whataboutism.
Now, not everything that looks like whataboutism is wrong. Seeking consistency or comparing actions or responses is normal. 1/5
But when someone pulls some completely unrelated event, that happened to completely different people, a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, you know what you’re dealing with: a crass denial of the problem at hand, a bad-faith attempt to derail the topic. 2/5
Logic or chronology plays no role here, nor your opinion on these other topics. You could be the staunchest critic or supporter of these other actions thrown into the discussion, it doesn’t matter. It is irrelevant whether these other things are true or not, or bad or not. 3/5
In this 3rd Debunk of the Day, we’ll talk about… “ending” the war by surrendering or ceding territory.
Nearing four years of the 2-day “special military operation”, Russia is desperate to obtain through other means what they failed to conquer on the battlefield. 1/5
An endless army of vatniks therefore tries to demoralize both Ukrainians and supporters.
They sound noble: “anti-war” or concerned about the fate of Ukraine’s civilians, soldiers and cities. They claim that if we just stop fighting or helping, this horror would magically end. 2/5
What they never mention is… WHO started the war, WHO murders Ukrainians, WHO destroys Ukrainian cities: the same monsters they suggest Ukrainians be at the mercy of. Surrendering wouldn’t end the atrocities of the occupation, it would enable them. Surrendering wouldn’t even…3/5
In today’s Debunk of the Day (2), we’ll look at… nuclear blackmail. Vatniks love using Russia’s nuclear threats as a reason for surrendering or for not lifting a finger to help Ukraine: “see, they have nukes, we have to give them whatever they want”.
The argument is absurd: 1/5
Nuclear deterrence has been a reality for decades. Both the US and Russia have lost wars without resorting to nukes. We are not submitting to the whims of Pakistan or North Korea either. For vatniks, it’s just an insidious way of siding with Putin. 2/5
We can’t just give in to the Kremlin’s nuclear blackmail, to the threats their officials and propagandists make five times a day to scare us into letting them have something they know perfectly well is not theirs, with no limit to their appetite. 3/5 vatniksoup.com/en/nuclear-thr…
In today’s Vatnik Soup, we introduce a Ukrainian “scholar” and social media activist, Marta Havryshko (@HavryshkoMarta). She’s best known for spreading anti-Ukraine and pro-Kremlin narratives online, along with a habit of spotting neo-Nazis everywhere in Ukraine.
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Marta hails from Ukraine, where she studied history at Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. She received her PhD in history in 2010. Her academic work focused on gender-based violence and wartime atrocities, including publications on sexual crimes in occupied Ukraine.
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She is currently working as a visiting Assistant Professor at the Strassler Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies at Clark University in the US. According to the center’s website, Marta teaches courses on antisemitism, racism, and gender-based violence in armed conflicts.