Steve's Politics Blog

Truth Dig has posted authorized excerpts of Oliver Stone’s interview – ‘The Putin Interviews’: Excerpt. One issue that I have blogged about numerous times is the U.S. backed coup d’état in the Ukraine.

VP: Remember how the Ukrainian crisis unfolded. [We’ve discussed it.] The three foreign ministers of European countries were acting as guarantors of an agreement between the opposition and President Yanukovych. Everyone agreed to that. President Yanukovych even agreed to hold early elections. At that time, at the initiative of the United States of America, they told us, ‘We ask you to prevent President Yanukovych from using the armed forces.’ And they promised in their term they were going to do everything for the opposition to clear the squares and the administrative buildings. We said, ‘Very well that is a good proposal. We are going to work on it.’ And as you, know President Yanukovych didn’t resort to the armed forces. But the very next day the coup d’état took place during the night. We didn’t have a telephone conversation, we didn’t get a call, we simply saw them [the Americans] actively support those who perpetrated the coup d’état. And we could only shrug our shoulders. Such conduct, the way the Americans acted, even among individuals is absolutely unacceptable. They should have at least told us afterwards that the situation had spun out of control. They should have told us that they would do everything to put them back on a constitutional track. No, they didn’t do that. They started to come up with lies saying that Yanukovych had fled. And they supported those who performed that coup d’état. How can we trust such partners?

OS: Question—is this when Victoria Nuland, the Undersecretary of State, had that conversation with the American ambassador and said, “Fuck the EU”?

VP: Well, it doesn’t matter, honestly. It was on February 21st. Or maybe the 20th. The coup d’état took place the next day. So now that Crimea has become a full fledged part of the Russian Federation, our attitude towards it changed drastically. If we see a threat to our territory, just as any other country, we will have to protect it by all means at our disposal. I wouldn’t draw an analogy with the Cuban Missile Crisis, because back then the world was on the brink of a nuclear apocalypse. Thankfully, the situation didn’t go as far this time, even though we did indeed deploy our most sophisticated, our cutting-edge systems, for coastal defense.

I actually thought that Oliver Stone mischaracterized the Victoria Nuland remarks, so I searched my previous posts about Ambassador Nuland.

I found one, U.S. officials caught in Ukraine plot, that seemed to corronorate Stone’s take on what she said.

In addition, it showed that the U.S. is contemptuous of the role of its EU partners, who are also imperialist rivals.

The very next one I found, NYT Revamps Its False Ukraine Narrative, sort of explains wjhy I thought Stone was wrong.

The Ukraine crisis really emerged from the European Union’s offer of an association agreement that President Yanukovych was initially inclined to accept. But it was accompanied by harsh austerity demands from the International Monetary Fund, which would have made the hard life for the average Ukrainian even harder.

Because of those IMF demands and a more generous $15 billion loan offer from Russia, Yanukovych backed away from the EU association, angering many western Ukrainians and creating an opening for U.S. neocons, such as Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland and Sen. John McCain, to urge on protests to unseat Yanukovych

That last blog post had a link to the article, EU Association Agreement with Ukraine Is a Gift to Kleptocrats, that explains what was wrong with the EU offer to the Ukraine.

Knowing all this makes the Putin remarks very credible. More credible than the fiction that the U.S. government and corporate press has tried to sell us.

YouTube has the video of the Oliver Stone production of The Putin Interviews – Part 1 (English Subtitles).

Published on Jun 13, 2017

Oliver Stone interviews the Russian president Vladimir Putin about divisive issues related to the US-Russia relations.

Download Links to the series:

PART 1 (504 mb): https://fil.email/5lMzwL9R

PART 2 (655 mb): https://fil.email/nRvAvpBj

PART 3 (498 mb): https://fil.email/YDd8CART

Since this is subtitled, try to view this full screen on the largest screen you have. Even without enlarging it on my desktop computer, I was able to read the subtitles with my inferior vision, but it was easier when I made it full screen.

It is important to be able to view this cideo with an open mind. Try to free yourself from arguing against it until you have taken in the words that are being said. For some this will be easy to do. I just fear that for others (Stephen Colbert, e.g.), they will be so busy forming a rebuttal as Putin and Stone speak that their minds won’t even understand what is being said.

The Real News Network has the Max Blumenthal interview Bernie Sanders and Rand Paul Buck Party Consensus on Russia and Iran Sanctions.

Investigative journalist Max Blumenthal explains that these sanctions punish Russia and Iran unnecessarily intensifies the conflict between the US and these countries.

When I have to say that Senator Rand Paul is one of only two sane senators in the U.S. Congress on this issue, you know the world is about to come to an end. Has someone been importing drinking water from Flint, Michigan into Washington D.C. to deaden the minds of our political “leaders”?

Naked Capitalism has the article The Fiscal Policy Experience Since the Great Recession. The article finishes with a nice summary of how we ought to look at government deficits. (Emphasis added by me.)

The question should always be whether the fiscal position is supportive of a high level of economic activity, and the budget deficit should be large enough to support that level of economic activity—but not larger. When private sector demand is low, then potential savings are high and will become available to support budget deficit of an appropriate size. Debts accumulated from appropriate deficits can similarly be readily accommodated. Instead of fretting about the debt ratios and striving to always balance the (structural) budget, the focus should be on why a deficit is often necessary for a reasonable level of economic activity.

This nicely puts an end to the straw-man argument that austerity fanatics frequently put up. They try to make their point with an argument using reductio ad absurdum (Latin for “reduction to absurdity”). They propose the theory that if a deficit is good for the economy, then a bigger deficit must be better. Then they propose absurd levels of deficit to prove that deficits cannot be good. The above summary from the articule talks only about “budget deficit of an appropriate size”. Deficits can be too large, but they can also be too small. Reductio ad absurdum just leads to absurd results. Dismiss the people who try to prove that deficits are never good.

Space Daily has the story Researchers discover shortcut to satellite-based quantum encryption network.

From the ground, researchers measured laser signals that originated from a satellite and traveled through Earth’s gravitational potential and the turbulent atmosphere. The successful characterization of quantum features under such conditions is a precondition for the implementation of a global quantum communication network using satellites that would link metropolitan area quantum networks on the ground.

I have blogged about various quantum mechanical issues. The issue at hand here is quantum entanglement. In particular, I thought I understood it in the post ‘Quantum teleportation’ breakthrough by DARPA-funded physicists. However, I still don’t feel comfortable that I really understand many of the details for practical use of the physics.

I can’t remember the book that I read about quantum entanglement, but perhaps it was The Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics Was Reborn. The title doesn’t sound as familiar as it should if this is the book.

AOL has the article CNN Interview with Bernie Sanders’ wife after Alexandria shooting takes unexpected turn.

Wolf Blitzer’s interview with Jane Sanders took an unexpected turn Thursday as the CNN host and the wife of the former presidential candidate sparred over the media’s role in the current national political environment.

Jane Sanders didn’t quite get the right words to explain to Wolf Blitzer what is wrong with his coverage of the “news”. She couldn’t get through to him with an explanation of his focus on personalities and sound bites rather than issues. She mentioned oligarchs, but Wolf never did. How are we ever going to explain to the corporate press that we are onto the game they are playing? They cover the news to get ratings and to promulgate the message and philosophy that their oligarchic bosses want to spread. We want news that will be useful for solving the problems faced by the 99%. We don’t need news that focuses on how to improve the lives of the 1%, and cares not a whit about how it harms the 99%.

Consortium News has the Ray McGovern article NBC’s Kelly Hits Putin with a Beloved Canard.

For instance, on May 8, in testimony before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper conceded publicly that the number of intelligence agencies involved in the assessment was three, not 17, and that the analysts assigned to the project from CIA, FBI and NSA had been “handpicked.”

On May 23, in testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, former CIA Director John Brennan confirmed Clapper’s account about the three agencies involved. “It wasn’t a full inter-agency community assessment that was coordinated among the 17 agencies,” Brennan acknowledged.

Here is a YouTube video to back up this part of what Ray McGovern said in his article.

Follow this link to some posts that debunk other parts of the Russian hacking propaganda.

Truth Dig has the article Fake News From The Washington Post? How a Columnist Whitewashes Saudi Arabia’s Actions.

One of the key points of contention between the Gulf states is Al Jazeera, the state-sponsored cable and online news titan that has acted as an arm of Qatari soft power. Though the UAE has no such network to boast of, the emails from Yousef Otaiba—one of the Beltway’s slickest operators—show how the UAE launders its message behind influential sources in Washington.

I have long since realized that the Washington Post gas a pro-war message to peddle, and they have no shame in falsely reporting the “news” to sell their view. The level of influence that “journalist” David Ignatius has over the Obama, Clinton, and now Trump is dangerous. The fact that ordinary citizens don’t see the Washington Post as a propaganda tool of the oligarchs is particularly disappointing.

The UK Independent has the column I’m a 90-year-old woman who has lived in Israel for 50 years – here is what I think about Israeli settlements by Ruth Kedar.

For 50 years the occupation has weakened Israel from within. It should never have happened. It has brought such radical and negative change to the country I love that I wonder every day whether what we have become is a place that I want my grandchildren to grow up in. In my 90 years, I have lived all 50 of this occupation. I will keep trying to end it. I don’t know for how long, but I will.

Just looking at the comments on this piece, I see that it has already stirred up the controversy that I had expected. The fact that I am a citizen of a country that does as heinous acts as happens in Israel, is no indication that I approve of what the U.S. does. I also do not buy the committing of crimes against humanity because the other side does it too. I also do not buy the theory that this woman does not have a right to protest what her country does because she isn’t also protesting what other countries are doing. Of course the people making the accusation that she is not protesting what other countries do probably don’t know what other protests she is making.

I know I won’t change the minds of people who think you can violate human rights because someone else does too. Refusing to violate human rights is a moral stand that a person takes that has little to do with what other people are willing to do. That doesn’t even consider the possibility that the other people are using the same justification for their violations that you are using for yours. Someone has to be the first to take the moral stand.

YouTube has the video of Premiere of the Nina Turner Show with Bernie Sanders.

Bernie Sanders and Nina Turner discuss the building of a movement to fight the oligarchy and the achievements of the People’s Summit

You can’t get lots of Democrats elected in 2018 if the people know that the Democrats aren’t going to do any better for them than the Republicans. Most of the leaders of the Democratic party are more subtly corrupt than the Republicans. Things will not get better with the current set of Democrats in control. These Democrats will noit let Progressives gain control of the party. We may have to chase the Democratic Party out of power completely before we can expect any reform. Can we fix the Democratic Party before 2018? From my view of the local Democratic Party in Sturbridge, I don’t think there is much hope.