Believing their own propaganda about “Russian aggression,” Western leaders are building up NATO forces in the Baltic states, which treat ethnic Russians as second-class citizens, possibly provoking a nuclear showdown that no one wants and that a searing BBC documentary imagines, writes Gilbert Doctorow. By Gilbert Doctorow The documentary film “World War Three: Inside the War Room” was…
Two years ago, the Maidan uprising ousted Ukraine’s elected president, prompting resistance in Crimea and eastern Ukraine, with Crimeans voting overwhelmingly to reunify with Russia, a move that then sparked a new cold war. As propaganda enveloped this issue, Natylie Baldwin went to see for herself last fall. By Natylie Baldwin We had boarded the bus…
Exclusive: NATO keeps backing Turkey, one of its members, despite its aid to the Islamic State and other jihadists fighting Syria’s secular government — and even though Turkey’s erratic President Erdogan may be leading NATO into a risky showdown with Syria’s Russian allies, writes Jonathan Marshall. By Jonathan Marshall Turkey’s embattled President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is resurrecting the “deep…
Exclusive: Syrian rebels, including dominant jihadist elements, torpedoed Geneva peace talks by setting preconditions to come to the table. But the maneuver also renewed pressure on President Obama to commit to a “regime-change” invasion of Syria alongside Saudi and other Sunni armies, as Joe Lauria explains. By Joe Lauria The Russian-backed Syrian Army’s encirclement of Aleppo,…
For decades, the Koch Brothers have funded a massive propaganda operation to disparage what democracy can do when a society pulls together and to glorify a “greed is good” narrative promising great benefits if capitalism reigns free. But the results have been good only for a privileged few, as Michael Winship describes. By Michael Winship…
The twin explosions of post-9/11 national security extravagance and Citizens United political spending bonanza have reshaped Washington — not only in its political outlook but physically, with this New Class preferring lavish McMansions to show off their newfound wealth, as Mike Lofgren describes. By Mike Lofgren In 1927, H.L. Mencken rode by train through the…
What is most startling about the excited response to Sen. Sanders’s campaign is that millions of Americans seem to be saying that free-market capitalism is failing them and that there must be something better than accepting vast income inequality, as economist Richard Wolff explained to Dennis J Bernstein. By Dennis J Bernstein Sen. Bernie Sanders’s…
Since Ronald Reagan, the Republicans have rallied many Americans around the notion that “government is the problem.” And, despite disasters for the middle and working classes, right-wing intellectuals like Charles Krauthammer continue to sell the same message, as Lawrence Davidson describes. By Lawrence Davidson Charles Krauthammer is the most celebrated contemporary conservative thinker in the…
Sen. Ted Cruz – known for his brash, boastful and brutal proclamations – is remaking himself in the image of the Lord Savior as he appeals to the Republican Religious Right to pave his way to the GOP nomination and the White House, as Bill Moyers and Gail Ablow describe. By Bill Moyers and Gail…
Exclusive: Americans have been carefully shielded from the ugly underbelly of Ukraine’s Maidan uprising in 2014 that overthrew the elected president and installed a U.S.-backed, fiercely anti-Russian regime which has unleashed armed neo-Nazis. But a French documentary has dared to expose this grim reality, as Gilbert Doctorow describes. By Gilbert Doctorow A new French documentary…
