Michael Parenti on George Orwell and “Red-bashing” from the “left”:

“A prototypic Red-basher who pretended to be on the Left was George Orwell. In the middle of World War II, as the Soviet Union was fighting for its life against the Nazi invaders at Stalingrad, Orwell announced that a “willingness to criticize Russia and Stalin is the test of intellectual honesty. It is the only thing that from a literary intellectual’s point of view is really dangerous.” Safely ensconced within a virulently anticommunist society, Orwell (with Orwellian doublethink)

An important public service announcement:

United States intelligence agencies have the most sophisticated propaganda tools seen in human history and that remains the case today.

While the US may not be as preeminent economically or even in its ability to fight a conventional war as it was 40 years ago, it has retained steady refinement of propaganda tools and a control over and manipulation of media organizations in the western world.

US intelligence has received funding from US taxpayers to the tune of tens of billions annually to spy

For those new to this account, here are my biases and viewpoints:

This account is run by an American and scientific socialist committed to anti-imperialism.

I recognize the United States as the most powerful and dominant imperial power.

I deeply love the people in my country and I believe the empire is feeding off the people in the quest of our ruling capitalist class to maintain and expand their social and economic domination at home and across the world.

I have great pride in the tradition of great American radicals and freedom fighters

Important war update 📰 ⚔️

The Armed Forces of Ukraine has seen minimal success over the first two weeks of the “counter-offensive.”

The AFU has yet to reach the first major line of Russian defenses in the Zaporizhzhia direction, key to the goal of cutting through to Crimea. But this is not for lack of effort. Over the last 48 hours especially, the fighting has been tragic and some of the most intense of the war, according to reports, as the AFU continues throwing men into the teeth of the Russian military.

In today’s #closetnazis I’ll introduce Pekka Kallioniemi, a Finnish propagandist who’s best known for doxxing people online and making his life’s mission to hate everything and everyone remotely associated with Russia. Undoubtedly, had he lived 70 years ago Pekka would’ve been one of the first Finish volunteers for the Waffen-SS.

Pekka is a darling of the NAFO movement, a group of online trolls spreading anti-Russian propaganda and hate. His singular focus is to tarnish the names of anyone asking critical questions or presenting alternative

A rising China may turn the tide for the Palestinian cause 🇵🇸🤝🇨🇳

China and Palestine are “strategic partners,” announced Xi Jinping Wednesday during Mahmoud Abbas’ state visit.

China reiterated its support for Palestinian statehood with 1967 borders and East Jerusalem as its capital.

“The historical injustice done to the Palestinian people should not be left unattended indefinitely, the legitimate rights and interest of a nation are not up for trade, and the demand to establish an independent state shall not be denied,” Xi had stated in his earlier

Today, hours after President Zelenskyy welcomed the delegation of African Heads of State, invoking Mandela in his speech, Poland detained a delegation of “security officials, diplomats and journalists accompanying South Africa’s president.”

African nations, with sharp memories of European colonialism, remain skeptical of the Euro-Supremacist Ukrainian government. It seems each time overtures are made complications arise.

South Africa, one of the notable abstentions on votes to condemn the Russia’s Special Military Operation, has been building robust

On Friday President Zelenskyy signaled there would no negotiations until the UAF returns “all Ukrainian land.”

Zelenskyy appears to be between a rock and a hard place, as onlookers grow concerned with his increasingly erratic behavior and newspeak tweets.

Some suggest Zelenskyy is politically trapped. One hand, continued escalation risks the destruction of Ukraine, their armed forces, and with each new battle Russian Ministry of Defense seems to become more successful in targeting Ukrainian high command.

On the other hand,

Some refer to Richard M. Nixon as “the last liberal president” as he outlined a national health plan, advocated for a minimum income, and signed a slate of environmental protections.

Many of the best historians rightly identify that the “progressive” nature of an administration is not dependent on the party, but on the strength of the peoples movement and the leverage working people have to effect change.

In the 1930s, President Roosevelt was documented expressing fears that if not for major concessions to the working Americans, the communists,

The Ukraine war shatters the credibility of US imperialists. The disinformation campaign from the West has reached historical proportions. We in the West live in “1984” level manipulation and rewriting of truth.

The contortion of the situation in Ukraine, claiming Ukrainian Armed Forces are winning, Russia is falling apart and isolated, and Ukraine can defeat Russia, cuts against every independent military and international geopolitical analyst I’ve seen assess the situation.

Yet, this is the mainstream narrative in Western media and from our

Cornel West on the real legacy of MLK:

“The history of the American empire is not solely the history of the powers that be, it’s also the history of those who resisted, of those who tried to tell the truth, and to reintroduce America to the best of itself could be liberating. “You notice in February we see all these politicians of different colors, especially some of the Black ones, start breakdancing when you talk about Martin Luther King Jr., then you tell them who the real King was, what his vision was.

One of the great lies is that the West is ideologically diverse while Communist countries are monoliths. But the opposite is true. The West seeks to destroy thought altogether.

As Michael Parenti describes, “the communist countries used to produce inexpensive but quality editions of classical and contemporary authors and poets, including ones from Latin America, Asia and Africa. These have been replaced by second-rate, mass-market publications from the West. During the communist era, three of every five books in the world were produced in the

I’m not voting for Joe Biden under any circumstances. We’re getting fascism with a neo-liberal cultural garb shoved down our throats. We’re staring down hyper-inflation and a global war due to policies brought about by this senile old man and his out-of-touch Administration in a fully corporatized national party. The country is facing ruin, and rather than respond and adjust to the changing world, the Biden administration grasps desperately to preserve imperial power, even throwing their people under the bus to this end. We’ve see this same story

In Blackshirts and Reds, Micheal Parenti describes the anti-communist framework in the media, one used against China today:

“During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions, this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent;

Last spring, US leaders announced the West was more united than ever and that “Putin’s miscalculation” in his February offensive would cripple the Russian economy. Eleven months later, let’s examine where we are 🧵: The military situation: in the past few months the Russian military and militaries of the DPK and LPK have made significant strategic advances in eastern “Ukraine” despite billions in arms and military assistance flowing in from the West.