The Real News Network is also excellent in bring information and different
points of view to us. Also, the podcasts: Intercepted, Moderate Rebels, Loud
and Clear, Flashpoints, The Electronic Intifada, and others.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Friday, March 08, 2019 10:55 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Stephen Cohen's book
Good advice, Miriam. But very, very difficult to do. Perhaps it was not
always thus, but Americans have been trained to be passive receivers. From
early education, and yes, from early religious training, we are taught to take
in "information" and accept it as our basis of all future "information". The
positions of the American Empire dominates the Media, and those who dare to
question are condemned as Terrorists, Traitors, unAmerican, communists, or just
plain crazy. The American Empire's Media does not question, nor does it allow
questioning of the practices and policies of the Empire.
I consider anyone who questions the Empire's propaganda to be courageous. High
on my current list of Heroes are the two Muslim congress members who stand up
for their convictions and bravely question the misbehavior that is going on in
Congress.
If it were not for such little known or listened to broadcasts such as
Democracy Now, I would have a far more difficult time digging out actual facts
from the ever-present pressure of the Empire's Media.
Carl Jarvis
On 3/7/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I've just finished reading "War With Russia?" by Stephen F. Cohen.
It's a collection of essays that he's written about the development of
Russiagate, mostly from 2013 to October 2018. Cohen is a Professor of
Russian History and Culture who taught at Princeton University and is,
I gather, now retired. He is married to Katrina Vanderhugen, the
publisher and editor of The Nation Magazine which is a 150 year old
magazine. He is also a brave man because he points out all of the lies
and distortions in the demonizing of Putin and the targeting of Russia
as an enemy, and the dangerous course that this kind of propaganda
puts our country on. He's also very brave because very few people,
particularly those in the public eye, are willing to say what he is
saying. I never bought Russiagate, but I did believe everything, or
just about everything negative, that was said and written about Putin.
So
this book has educated me. I have my own feelings about Russia, having
visited there and compared it to China, and having read so many
negative things about the country over the years. I was also
professionally involved with adoptions from Russia and there were
things that I learned about the bureaucracy and about the culture
through that experience. So I'm in the process of sorting all of this
out. I did discover that Bookshare has a book that I looked for when
it first came out, but couldn't find. It is Oliver Stone's Interviews
With Putin which came out in 2017 with an introduction by Robert
Scheer, a man whom I dearly love. So I'm going to read that next. I
remember hearing Stone talk about those interviews, probably on
Scheer's radio program which is a podcast.
We can so easily be misled by the media because we have been
conditioned to believe the pictures they paint of foreign leaders. But
having seen how stories regarding Maduro and Chavez and precisely what
happened and is happening in Venezuela, and watching what actually
happened in Ukraine, and discovering that Israel is not a democratic
country and the savior of the Jews, I caution people to read and
listen to everything, cautiously, suspisciously.
Miriam
