top of the heap to third world status in one generation

[Gry]

The Skunk Factor: The role of weed in America's decline

Shortly before my first run for governor of Massachusetts, in 2014, the Bay State became one of the first to legalize “medical” marijuana and would

thelibertyloft.com

Qualifies as yellow journalism for me. Long been concerned that the future of cannabis is far from safe or secure.
The author has a history of making disgusting claims revolving around gays, it appears that he now has cannabis in his sights.
Sickening seeing him go after something which has been a blessing to so many.

 

[h.h.]

The yellow journalism that you rely on for your truths, has stepped up its game and has found its place on an OC sticky.

 

[Gry]

Thought you had claimed that was the case when I posted the content by Max Blumenthal which laid out the backing to
the "President " of the Ukraine. I still recall the content it was powerful, lets revisit it now:

How Ukraine’s Jewish President, Volodymyr Zelensky, Made Peace with Neo-Nazi Paramilitaries on Front Lines of War with Russia​

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded Right Sector commander Dmytro Kotsyubaylo the “Hero of Ukraine” commendation on December 1 / credit: Focus.ua
Back in October 2019, as the war in eastern Ukraine dragged on, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky traveled to Zolote, a town situated firmly in the “gray zone” of Donbas, where over 14,000 had been killed, mostly on the pro-Russian side. There, the president encountered the hardened veterans of extreme right paramilitary units keeping up the fight against separatists just a few miles away.

Elected on a platform of de-escalation of hostilities with Russia, Zelensky was determined to enforce the so-called Steinmeier Formula conceived by then-German Foreign Minister Walter Steinmeier which called for elections in the Russian-speaking regions of Donetsk and Lugansk.

In a face-to-face confrontation with militants from the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion who had launched a campaign to sabotage the peace initiative called “No to Capitulation,” Zelensky encountered a wall of obstinacy.

With appeals for disengagement from the frontlines firmly rejected, Zelensky melted down on camera. “I’m the president of this country. I’m 41 years old. I’m not a loser. I came to you and told you: Remove the weapons,” Zelensky implored the fighters.




Once video of the stormy confrontation spread across Ukrainian social media channels, Zelensky became the target of an angry backlash.

Andriy Biletsky, the proudly fascist Azov Battalion leader who once pledged to “lead the white races of the world in a final crusade…against Semite-led Untermenschen”, vowed to bring thousands of fighters to Zolote if Zelensky pressed any further. Meanwhile, a parliamentarian from the party of former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko openly fantasized about Zelensky being blown to bits by a militant’s grenade.

Though Zelensky achieved a minor disengagement, the neo-Nazi paramilitaries escalated their “No Capitulation” campaign. And within months, fighting began to heat up again in Zolote, sparking a new cycle of violations of the Minsk Agreement.

By this point, Azov had been formally incorporated into the Ukrainian military and its street vigilante wing, known as the National Corps, was deployed across the country under the watch of the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, and alongside the National Police. In December 2021, Zelensky would be seen delivering a “Hero of Ukraine” award to a leader of the fascistic Right Sector in a ceremony in Ukraine’s parliament.

A full-scale conflict with Russia was approaching, and the distance between Zelensky and the extremist paramilitaries was closing fast.

This February 24, when Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukrainian territory on a stated mission to “demilitarize and denazify” the country, U.S. media embarked on a mission of its own: to deny the power of neo-Nazi paramilitaries over the country’s military and political sphere. As the U.S. government-funded National Public Radio insisted, “Putin’s language [about denazification] is offensive and factually wrong.”

In its bid to deflect from the influence of Nazism in contemporary Ukraine, U.S. media has found its most effective PR tool in the figure of Zelensky, a former TV star and comedian from a Jewish background. It is a role the actor-turned-politician has eagerly assumed.

But as we will see, Zelensky has not only ceded ground to the neo-Nazis in his midst, he has entrusted them with a front line role in his country’s war against pro-Russian and Russian forces.

The President’s Jewishness As Western Media PR Device

Hours before President Putin’s February 24 speech declaring denazification as the goal of Russian operations, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “asked how a people who lost eight million of its citizens fighting Nazis could support Nazism,” according to the BBC.

Raised in a non-religious Jewish family in the Soviet Union during the 1980’s, Zelensky has downplayed his heritage in the past. “The fact that I am Jewish barely makes 20 in my long list of faults,” he joked during a 2019 interview in which he declined to go into further detail about his religious background.

Today, as Russian troops bear down on cities like Mariupol, which is effectively under the control of the Azov Battalion, Zelensky is no longer ashamed to broadcast his Jewishness. “How could I be a Nazi?” he wondered aloud during a public address. For a U.S. media engaged in an all-out information war against Russia, the president’s Jewish background has become an essential public relations tool.




A few examples of the U.S. media’s deployment of Zelensky as a shield against allegations of rampant Nazism in Ukraine are below (see mash-up video in above tweet):

• PBS NewsHour noted Putin’s comments on denazification with a qualifier: “Even though President Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish and his great uncles died in the Holocaust.”
• On Fox & Friends, former CIA officer Dan Hoffman declared that “it’s the height of hypocrisy to call the Ukrainian nation to denazify—their president is Jewish after all.”
• On MSNBC, Virginia Democratic Senator Mark Warner said Putin’s “terminology, outrageous and obnoxious as it is—‘denazify’ where you’ve got frankly a Jewish president in Mr. Zelensky. This guy [Putin] is on his own kind of personal jihad to restore greater Russia.”
• Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn said on Fox Business she’s “been impressed with President Zelensky and how he has stood up. And for Putin to go out there and say ‘we’re going to denazify’ and Zelensky is Jewish.”
• In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Gen. John Allen denounced Putin’s use of the term, “de-Nazify” while the newsman and former Israel lobbyist shook his head in disgust. In a separate interview with Blitzer, the so-called “Ukraine whistleblower” and Ukraine-born Alexander Vindman grumbled that the claim is “patently absurd, there’s really no merit… you pointed out that Volodymyr Zelensky is Jewish… the Jewish community [is] embraced. It’s central to the country and there is nothing to this Nazi narrative, this fascist narrative. It’s fabricated as a pretext.”

Behind the corporate media spin lies the complex and increasingly close relationship Zelensky’s administration has enjoyed with the neo-Nazi forces invested with key military and political posts by the Ukrainian state, and the power these open fascists have enjoyed since Washington installed a Western-aligned regime through a coup in 2014.

In fact, Zelensky’s top financial backer, the Ukrainian Jewish oligarch Igor Kolomoisky, has been a key benefactor of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and other extremists militias.

The Azov Battalion marches with Nazi-inspired Wolfsangel flags in Mariupol, August 2020 / credit: The Grayzone

Backed by Zelensky’s Top Financier, Neo-Nazi Militants Unleash a Wave of Intimidation

Incorporated into the Ukrainian National Guard, the Azov Battalion is considered the most ideologically zealous and militarily motivated unit fighting pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Donbass region.

With Nazi-inspired Wolfsangel insignia on the uniforms of its fighters, who have been photographed with Nazi SS symbols on their helmets, Azov “is known for its association with neo-Nazi ideology…[and] is believed to have participated in training and radicalizing U.S.-based white supremacy organizations,” according to an FBI indictment of several U.S. white nationalists that traveled to Kiev to train with Azov.

Igor Kolomoisky, a Ukrainian energy baron of Jewish heritage, has been a top funder of Azov since it was formed in 2014. He has also bankrolled private militias like the Dnipro and Aidar Battalions, and has deployed them as a personal thug squad to protect his financial interests.

In 2019, Kolomoisky emerged as the top backer of Zelensky’s presidential bid. Though Zelensky made anti-corruption the signature issue of his campaign, the Pandora Papers exposed him and members of his inner circle stashing large payments from Kolomoisky in a shadowy web of offshore accounts.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (center) meets with billionaire oligarch and business associate Igor Kolomoisky (second from right) on September 10, 2019 / credit: The Grayzone
When Zelensky took office in May 2019, the Azov Battalion maintained de facto control of the strategic southeastern port city of Mariupol and its surrounding villages. As Open Democracy noted, “Azov has certainly established political control of the streets in Mariupol. To maintain this control, they have to react violently, even if not officially, to any public event which diverges sufficiently from their political agenda.”

Attacks by Azov in Mariupol have included assaults on “feminists and liberals” marching on International Women’s Day among other incidents.

In March 2019, members of the Azov Battalion’s National Corps attacked the home of Viktor Medvedchuk, the leading opposition figure in Ukraine, accusing him of treason for his friendly relations with Vladimir Putin, the godfather of Medvedchuk’s daughter.

Zelensky’s administration escalated the attack on Medvedchuk, shuttering several media outlets he controlled in February 2021 with the open approval of the U.S. State Department, and jailing the opposition leader for treason three months later. Zelensky justified his actions on the grounds that he needed to “fight against the danger of Russian aggression in the information arena.”

Next, in August 2020, Azov’s National Corps opened fire on a bus containing members of Medvedchuk’s party, Patriots for Life, wounding several with rubber-coated steel bullets.




Zelensky Failed to Rein In Neo-Nazis, Wound Up Collaborating with Them

Following his failed attempt to demobilize neo-Nazi militants in the town of Zolote in October 2019, Zelensky called the fighters to the table, telling reporters “I met with veterans yesterday. Everyone was there—the National Corps, Azov, and everyone else.”

A few seats away from the Jewish president was Yehven Karas, the leader of the neo-Nazi C14 gang.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky meets with “veterans,” including Yehven Karas (far right) and Dmytro Shatrovsky, an Azov Battalion leader (bottom left) / credit: The Grayzone
During the Maidan “Revolution of Dignity” that ousted Ukraine’s elected president in 2014, C14 activists took over Kiev’s city hall and plastered its walls with neo-Nazi insignia before taking shelter in the Canadian embassy.

As the former youth wing of the ultra-nationalist Svoboda Party, C14 appears to draw its name from the infamous 14 words of U.S. neo-Nazi leader David Lane: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.”

By offering to carry out acts of spectacular violence on behalf of anyone willing to pay, the hooligans have fostered a cozy relationship with various governing bodies and powerful elites across Ukraine.

C14 neo-Nazi gang offers to carry out violence-for-hire: “C14 works for you. Help us keep afloat, and we will help you. For regular donors, we are opening a box for wishes. Which of your enemies would you like to make life difficult for? We’ll try to do that.” / credit: KHPG A March 2018 report by Reuters stated that “C14 and Kiev’s city government recently signed an agreement allowing C14 to establish a ‘municipal guard’ to patrol the streets,” effectively giving them the sanction of the state to carry out pogroms.
As The Grayzone reported, C14 led raid to “purge” Romani from Kiev’s railway station in collaboration with the Kiev police.




Not only was this activity sanctioned by the Kiev city government, the U.S. government itself saw little problem with it, hosting Bondar at an official U.S. government institution in Kiev where he bragged about the pogroms. C14 continued to receive state funding throughout 2018 for “national-patriotic education.”

Karas has claimed that the Ukrainian Security Serves would “pass on” information regarding pro-separatist rallies “not only [to] us, but also Azov, the Right Sector and so on.”

“In general, deputies of all factions, the National Guard, the Security Service of Ukraine and the Ministry of Internal Affairs work for us. You can joke like that,” Karas said.

Throughout 2019, Zelensky and his administration deepened their ties with ultra-nationalist elements across Ukraine.

Ukrainian then-Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk onstage at the neo-Nazi “Veterans Strong” concert / credit: The Grayzone
After Prime Minister Attends Neo-Nazi Concert, Zelensky Honors Right Sector Leader

Just days after Zelensky’s meeting with Karas and other neo-Nazi leaders in November 2019, Oleksiy Honcharuk—then the Prime Minister and deputy head of Zelensky’s presidential office—appeared on stage at a neo-Nazi concert organized by C14 figure and accused murderer Andriy Medvedko.

Zelensky’s Minister for Veterans Affairs not only attended the concert, which featured several antisemitic metal bands, she promoted the concert on Facebook.

Also in 2019, Zelensky defended Ukrainian footballer Roman Zolzulya against Spanish fans taunting him as a “Nazi.” Zolzulya had posed beside photos of the World War II-era Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera and openly supported the Azov Battalion. Zelensky responded to the controversy by proclaiming that all of Ukraine backed Zolzulya, describing him as “not only a cool football player but a true patriot.”

In November 2021, one of Ukraine’s most prominent ultra-nationalist militiamen, Dmytro Yarosh, announced that he had been appointed as an advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valery Zaluzhny. Yarosh is an avowed follower of the Nazi collaborator Bandera who led Right Sector from 2013 to 2015, vowing to lead the “de-Russification” of Ukraine.

Ultra-nationalist militiaman Dmytro Yarosh (right) poses with Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, Valery Zaluzhny / credit: Facebook
A month later, as war with Russia drew closer, Zelensky awarded Right Sector commander Dmytro Kotsyubaylo the “Hero of Ukraine” commendation. Known as “Da Vinci,” Kosyubaylo keeps a pet wolf in his frontline base, and likes to joke to visiting reporters that his fighters “feed it the bones of Russian-speaking children.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded Right Sector commander Dmytro Kotsyubaylo the “Hero of Ukraine” commendation on December 1 / credit: Focus.ua

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky awarded Right Sector commander Dmytro Kotsyubaylo the “Hero of Ukraine” commendation on December 1 / credit: Focus.ua
Ukrainian State-Backed Neo-Nazi Leader Flaunts Influence on the Eve of War with Russia

On February 5, only days before full-scale war with Russia erupted, Yevhen Karas of the neo-Nazi C14 delivered a stem-winding public address in Kiev intended to highlight the influence his organization and others like it enjoyed over Ukrainian politics.




“LGBT and foreign embassies say ‘there were not many Nazis at Maidan, maybe about 10 percent of real ideological ones,’” Karas remarked. “If not for those eight percent [of neo-Nazis] the effectiveness [of the Maidan coup] would have dropped by 90 percent.”

The 2014 Maidan “Revolution of Dignity” would have been a “gay parade” if not for the instrumental role of neo-Nazis, he proclaimed.

Karas went on to opine that the West armed Ukrainian ultra-nationalists because “we have fun killing.” He also fantasized about the balkanization of Russia, declaring that it should be broken up into “five different” countries.

Yevhen Karas of neo-Nazi group, C14, pictured delivering the Nazi salute / credit: The Grayzone
“If We Get Killed… We Died Fighting a Holy War”

When Russian forces entered Ukraine this February 24, encircling the Ukrainian military in the east and driving towards Kiev, President Zelensky announced a national mobilization that included the release of criminals from prison, among them accused murderers wanted in Russia. He also blessed the distribution of arms to average citizens, and their training by battle-hardened paramilitaries like the Azov Battalion.

With fighting underway, Azov’s National Corps gathered hundreds of ordinary civilians, including grandmothers and children, to train in public squares and warehouses from Kharviv to Kiev to Lviv.




On February 27, the official Twitter account of the National Guard of Ukraine posted video of “Azov Fighters” greasing their bullets with pig fat to humiliate Russian Muslim fighters from Chechnya.




A day later, the Azov Battalion’s National Corps announced that the Azov Battalion’s Kharkiv Regional Police would begin using the city’s Regional State Administration building as a defense headquarters. Footage posted to Telegram the following day shows the Azov-occupied building being hit by a Russian airstrike.
Besides authorizing the release of hardcore criminals to join the battle against Russia, Zelensky has ordered all males of fighting age to remain in the country. Azov militants have proceeded to enforce the policy by brutalizing civilians attempting to flee from the fighting around Mariupol.

According to one Greek resident in Mariupol recently interviewed by a Greek news station, “When you try to leave you run the risk of running into a patrol of the Ukrainian fascists, the Azov Battalion,” he said, adding “they would kill me and are responsible for everything.”

Footage posted online appears to show uniformed members of a fascist Ukrainian militia in Mariupol violently pulling fleeing residents out of their vehicles at gunpoint.

BREAKING

Ukrainian NAZI are preventing people from leaving Mariupol and are shooting at them.
Residents of #Mariupol do not move around the city, Mariupol will soon be liberated!#EndTheBandera#StopUkrainianNazism
#Ukraine #Russia #DPR #LPR #DNR #LPR #Donbass pic.twitter.com/AakZGyNxQx
— Deus Abscondis (@Deus_Abscondis) February 26, 2022

Other video filmed at checkpoints around Mariupol showed Azov fighters shooting and killing civilians attempting to flee.

On March 1, Zelensky replaced the regional administrator of Odessa with Maksym Marchenko, a former commander of the extreme right Aidar Battalion, which has been accused of an array of war crimes in the Donbass region.

Meanwhile, as a massive convoy of Russian armored vehicles bore down on Kiev, Yehven Karas of the neo-Nazi C14 posted a video on YouTube from inside a vehicle presumably transporting fighters.

“If we get killed, it’s fucking great because it means we died fighting a holy war,” Karas exclaimed. ”If we survive, it’s going to be even fucking better! That’s why I don’t see a downside to this, only upside!”

Alex Rubinstein is an independent reporter on Substack. You can subscribe to get free articles from him delivered to your inbox here. If you want to support his journalism, which is never put behind a paywall, you can give a one-time donation to him through PayPal or sustain his reporting through Patreon. He can be followed on Twitter at @RealAlexRubi.

Max Blumenthal is the editor-in-chief of The Grayzone, as well as an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling Republican Gomorrah, Goliath, The Fifty One Day War, and The Management of Savagery. He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries, including Killing Gaza. Blumenthal founded The Grayzone in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on the United States’ state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions. He can be followed on Twitter at @MaxBlumenthal.

 

[Gry]

Roger Waters added to Ukrainian govt-sponsored hit list - The Grayzone

Russian political analyst Daria Dugina, who was killed in a car bomb explosion in Moscow on Saturday, now appears as “liquidated” on the Ukrainian online hit list. The site was created under the watch of the Minister of Internal Affairs. This article was originally published by Deborah L...

thegrayzone.com

 

[armedoldhippy]

Zelensky makes peace with Nazi paramilitaries... "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" "you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had" the USA and other nations allied themselves with one of (if not THE) the worst monsters of the 20th century (perhaps all time) to save Europe (and possibly the world) from domination by Adolph Hitler's Third Reich. you have to use the tools in your tool box...or don't do the job. WTF did you expect him to do?

 

[Hermanthegerman]

I love the title of this thread!

Before my inner eye, I´ve got always the RenCen in Detroit, after it was finished it was going down with the economy. This building, the Twin Towers and for excample the Sears Tower, were for me as a kid a strong sign for the power of the US.

 

[h.h.]

Russias unwarranted attack will result in more anti Russian radicalism. As they’re labeled nazis, they will become their enemies enemy and embrace the claims. A self fulfilling prophecy of Russian propaganda, of which you have an endless supply.

 

[Gry]

Zelensky makes peace with Nazi paramilitaries... "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" "you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had" the USA and other nations allied themselves with one of (if not THE) the worst monsters of the 20th century (perhaps all time) to save Europe (and possibly the world) from domination by Adolph Hitler's Third Reich. you have to use the tools in your tool box...or don't do the job. WTF did you expect him to do?

One can not appease Nazis. In each and every case where it was attempted, it has always been an expensive and
embarrassing mistake, that is what our history taught me.

I think it likely that Zelensky was inserted into a situation from which there would be no positive resolution, I would
be amazed to see him survive this.
You asked what would I have expected of him. I would expect that he is going to be maintaining commitments,
and was of an impression that he would have made a great number of them to various people that affect his every decision.

The agency put a lot of effort into creating a permanent irritant for Russia on the border.
Flooding a retirement area for elder Russians, with Nazi skinheads was no ones finest move.
When this is over, the Nazi element are going to demand recognition and power.
In my minds ear I still hear GWB reassuring Russia that "we will never go an inch closer. "
Brighter minds than I have said this has potential to spin us into the third world war in an instant.

 

[Gry]

I love the title of this thread!

Before my inner eye, I´ve got always the RenCen in Detroit, after it was finished it was going down with the economy. This building, the Twin Towers and for excample the Sears Tower, were for me as a kid a strong sign for the power of the US.

View attachment 18751027

Thank you most kindly Hermanthegerman, have long been pleased to have you stop in from time to time.
Will say the same for Jump117 as well. I too recall it when things here did look new and shining brightly. I would like to think that the heart and nature of the people here has not changed, and this country still has the can do potential to rebuild itself into any thing it would choose to be. Best to you, gry

 

[Gry]

Russias unwarranted attack will result in more anti Russian radicalism. As they’re labeled nazis, they will become their enemies enemy and embrace the claims. A self fulfilling prophecy of Russian propaganda, of which you have an endless supply.

The attack was the opposite of unwarranted, it had been long provoked as it so often the case.
The CIA spent years pumping those who self identified as nazi into an area filled with retired russians.
Sorry if you have difficultly in accepting that, it does not make the events less true.
It's what the agency does, and has been doing since the close of the second world war.
Almost hear in my minds ear GWB Sr telling the people of Russia, along with the rest of the world how we would never go "not one inch closer". It was not without reason the HQ of the CIA was named after him.

With respect to your claim that I am using Russian Propaganda:
So, let's not call out nazis for what they do because their enemies enemy may embrace those claims.
Which surpasses the definition of an apologist for me.

 

[Hermanthegerman]

Thank you most kindly Hermanthegerman, have long been pleased to have you stop in from time to time.
Will say the same for Jump117 as well. I too recall it when things here did look new and shining brightly. I would like to think that the heart and nature of the people here has not changed, and this country still has the can do potential to rebuild itself into any thing it would choose to be. Best to you, gry

Thank you for the kind words.

 

[Brother Nature]

Here's some more Russian propaganda for the thread. From a former Marine intelligence officer no less, the real krem de la kremlin...

SCOTT RITTER: The Death List​

August 31, 2022



The odious legacy of Stepan Bandera drives the suppression of those who dare challenge the narrative of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict promulgated by the Ukrainian government, its Western allies and a compliant mainstream media.

Stepan Bandera monument in Ternopil, Ukraine, 2017. (Mykola Vasylechko, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)
By Scott Ritter
Special to Consortium News

In May 1986 I received orders to attend a counterterrorism awareness course at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare School, in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. For the next two weeks I learned about the various terrorist threats facing the United States military, and was taught various skills to overcome them, such as high-speed evasive driving, counter-surveillance methodology and reactive shooting techniques.
Upon my return to Twenty-Nine Palms, where I was stationed as a Marine Corps intelligence officer, I was given the task of putting my newly learned skills to work by carrying out a base-wide counterterrorism exercise. I borrowed a scout-sniper team from the infantry battalion on base, and set them up in an apartment off base, where I turned them into a terrorist cell tasked with collecting intelligence on the senior officers who lived and worked on the base. The only rule was that the terrorists could not engage with civilians — no families were to be impacted by the drill.
Over the course of the next 30 days, my terrorist team was able to “assassinate” every battalion commander, the regimental commander and the base commander, using improvised explosive devices and sniper fire — and had the photographs to prove it.
The takeaway from this exercise was that if someone wanted you dead, you were probably going to die.
Vigilance was your only real defense — to be alert for anything suspicious. In short, to live a life governed by paranoia. In the age of terrorism, if you feel like someone is seeking to do you harm, it is probably because someone is seeking to do you harm.
Using Those Skills
Throughout my professional life, I have had occasion to use the skills I learned at Fort Bragg on several occasions — I was targeted for assassination while working as a U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq and I was informed that I was the subject of a “hit” put out by the Russian mafia for my role in breaking up an illicit missile component smuggling ring.
I would conduct a 360-degree inspection of my vehicle before entering it, looking for signs of tampering. And I would conduct counter-surveillance drills while driving, accelerating at odd intervals to see if anyone kept pace, or rapidly exiting a highway to see if anyone followed.
Today, I’m a 61-year-old writer living in the suburbs of Albany, New York. It’s a quiet neighborhood, where everyone knows everyone. And yet, due to recent circumstances, I once again find myself inspecting my vehicle before getting inside, keeping a watchful eye out for strange vehicles driving down my street and conducting counter-surveillance maneuvers while driving.
Why the paranoia? Simply put, my name has been added to a Ukrainian “kill list.” Think I’m getting too wound up? Ask the family of Daria Dugina, the 29-year-old daughter of the Russian philosopher Alexander Dugin. Both she and her father were on the same list. Both were targeted for death by an assassin dispatched by the Ukrainian security services. Only a last-second change of plans, which put Alexander Dugin behind the wheel of a different car, kept him from being killed in the blast that took the life of his daughter.

Daria Dugina. (1RNK, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)
I’ve been writing for some time now about the Ukrainian Center for Countering Disinformation and their publication in mid-July of a “blacklist” containing the names of 72 intellectuals, journalists, activists and politicians from several countries who were labeled “Russian propagandists” by the Ukrainian government for having the audacity to speak critically, yet factually, about the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict.
I took umbrage over this list for several reasons, first and foremost that the salaries of the Ukrainians who compiled this list appeared to be paid by the U.S. taxpayer using funds appropriated by Congress for that very purpose. The idea of Congress passing a law which empowered the Ukrainian government to do something — suppress the First Amendment guarantees of free speech and a free press — that Congress was Constitutionally prohibited from doing angered me.
[Related: SCOTT RITTER: Chuck Schumer’s War on Free Speech]
So, too, did the fact that the Center for Countering Disinformation announced the existence of this “blacklist” at a function organized by a U.S.-funded NGO and attended by State Department officials who sat mute while their Ukrainian colleagues labeled the persons on this list “information terrorists” who deserved to be arrested and prosecuted as “war criminals.”
At the time, I cautioned that the use of such inflammatory language meant that the “blacklist” could be turned into a “kill list” simply by having a fanatic decide to take justice into his or her own hands. Given that the U.S. government funded the creation of this list, organized the meeting where it was presented to the world and gave an implicit stamp of approval to the list and its accompanying labeling through the attendance of U.S. government officials, these fanatics don’t have to be foreign sourced. Plenty of people in the U.S. adhere to the same hate-filled ideology that exists in Ukraine today and which gave birth to the “blacklist.”
Some of them are my neighbors.
In June I drove down to Bethel, New York (the site of the original Woodstock music festival), to participate in a Spartan Obstacle Course Race. To get there, I had to drive past Ellenville, a sleepy little town that is home to a camp belonging to the Ukrainian American Youth Association which, every summer, coordinates with the Organization for the Defense of Four Freedoms of Ukraine to hold a “Heroes’ Holiday” honoring veteran of the Ukrainian People’s Army and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists.

I just realized the principal CYM-A camp is in Ellenville, NY, the same Ulster county I live in. CYM-A [aka SUMA]'s Ellenville camp ("Oselia") pictured below: the year it opened (1955), on the 25th anniversary of the UPA leader's death (1975), and its "Heroes Monument" today. pic.twitter.com/1AHa9sDKL1
— Bandera Lobby Blog (@mossrobeson__) May 17, 2019

The camp boasts a “Heroes’ Monument”, consists of a 42-foot-tall structure with a Ukrainian trident at the top flanked by the busts of Yevhen Konovalets, Symon Petliura, Roman Shukhevych and Stepan Bandera —four leading figures in the history of Ukrainian nationalism, all of whom were involved in the murders, collectively, of hundreds of thousands of Jews, Poles and Russians.
Bandera has been elevated to the status of a national hero in Ukraine, and his birthday is considered a national holiday.
That a monument to men responsible for genocidal mass murder and who, in the case of two of them (Shukhevych and Bandera) openly collaborated with Nazi Germany, could be erected in the United States is disturbing.
That every year Ukrainian-American adherents of the odious ideology of Stepan Bandera gather to celebrate his legacy at a “children’s camp” where the youth are arrayed in brown uniforms that make them look like what they, in fact, are — ideological storm troopers for a hateful neo-Nazi ideology that promotes the racial superiority of the Ukrainian people, is an national abomination.

Here is another, newer CYM-A camp ("Beskyd") which can be found in Baraboo, Wisconsin, featuring its fascist "Heroes Monument," including a bust of the wanna-be Hitler of Ukraine, Stepan Bandera. pic.twitter.com/RYTqcTQTaD
— Bandera Lobby Blog (@mossrobeson__) May 17, 2019

From Ellenville to Bethel, I saw evidence of this hateful reality in every blue-and-yellow Ukrainian flag fluttering in the wind — and every red-and-black banner of the Bandera-worshipping Ukrainian neo-Nazi fanatics that fluttered next to them.
Stepan Bandera Legacy
The legacy of Stepan Bandera is at the very heart of what passes for Ukrainian nationalism today. It dominates the political arena inside Ukraine, where all competing political ideology and affiliations have been outlawed by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
It is behind the suppression of all dissenting voices — foreign and domestic — that dare challenge the narrative about the Russian-Ukrainian conflict being promulgated by the Ukrainian government, its Western allies, and a compliant mainstream media.
After Consortium News published my letter to my New York congressional delegation (Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Paul Tonko), in which I called them out for voting for Public Law 117-128 appropriating $40 billion in U.S. taxpayer money to underwrite the Ukrainian government and military, there was concerted action by others impacted by the Ukrainian “blacklist,” which the legislation had funded. This was led by Diane Sare, the LaRouche Party candidate challenging Schumer for his Senate seat.
The publicity about congressionally-funded suppression of free speech appeared to be too much for those who are complicit in a frontal assault on the U.S. Constitution. The Center for Countering Disinformation’s “blacklist” was removed from the internet.
Victory, however, was short lived. Within days of the Center for Countering Disinformation’s “blacklist” being taken down, a list published by the Ukrainian “Myrotvorets” (Peacemaker’s) Center incorporated names that had been on the Center for Countering Disinformation “blacklist.”

Coat of Myrotvorets staff member with field version of their emblem on sleeve. (Shao, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons)
The Myrotvorets list has been in existence since 2014 and has been described as “effectively a death list for politicians, journalists, entrepreneurs and other public figures who have been ‘cleared for firing’” by the list’s creators.
Daria Dugina’s name was on that list.
And now so is mine, along with several other Westerners, such as Canadian journalist Eva Bartlett and British rock musician Roger Waters.

Scott Ritter on the death list. (Click to enlarge).
The Biden administration is silent about this abomination.
So is Congress.
According to 6 USCS § 101, the term terrorism is

“any activity that involves an act that is dangerous to human life or potentially destructive of critical infrastructure or key resources; and is a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State or other subdivision of the United States; and appears to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion, or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.”

There is little doubt that the murder of Daria Dugina was an act of terrorism perpetrated on behalf of the Ukrainian government. (Her photo on the list now has the word “liquidated” written diagonally across it in red.)
While the Ukrainians deny any such allegations, Russian authorities have assembled a convincing factual case to the contrary.
The existence of the Myrotvorets “death list” is an instrument of terror and should be taken down at the insistence of the U.S. Government.
The failure of the Ukrainian government to shut down the Myrotvorets Center and condemn its activities would constitute material support of terrorism.
The U.S. should also recognize any organizations which embrace the ideology of Stepan Bandera as terrorist entities — including those responsible for raising a new generation of brown-shirted neo-Nazis in the heartland of America.
The “Hero’s Monument” in Ellenville must be closed, and the statues of Bandera and the other three Ukrainian nationalists removed from public view.
It is a national disgrace that U.S. citizens are subjected to death threats from an erstwhile ally of the United States for simply exercising their Constitutional right of free speech. The adherents to the ideology of Stepan Bandera, in Ukraine and in the United States, must be treated as terrorists, and prosecuted with the same level of intensity and purpose as were the followers of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.
Until this is done, I will have no choice but to take the appropriate precautions to make sure that neither my family nor I suffer the fate of Daria Dugina.
Scott Ritter is a former U.S. Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. His most recent book is Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, published by Clarity Press.

 

[h.h.]

This guy?


Police said that he had tried to lure a 16-year-old girl — actually a Colonie undercover officer posing online — to a Burger King in Menands. That case was later adjourned in contemplation of dismissal — essentially dropped — and the record was sealed. At the time, Ritter suggested that the case was a smear campaign designed to silence him.

 

[Gry]

Scott Ritter
After the fact we did find out that GW Bush administration lied like hell about what turned into years of
needless wars. Scott Ritter had told the truth. Scott Ritter was relentlessly targeted as an example to the
next man who might have the desire to speak truth to power.

Consortium News has long been the home of Veteran Intel Professionals for Sanity.
They do still welcome and recognize the work of Scott Ritter.
Which might well be taken as an indication that other VIPS members recognize that he was indeed "targeted"
His most recent content in Consortium News:

SCOTT RITTER: Sometimes Humanity Gets it Right

Disarmament in the time of Perestroika spotlights the pivotal contributions of U.S.-Soviet inspectors in helping to complete the 1988 INF treaty, which took effect after a period of bilateral tensions that could be considered more severe than those of today. By Scott Ritter Special to Con

consortiumnews.com

 

[Gry]

Recent Scott Ritter contributions on Ukraine

SCOTT RITTER: The Death List

The odious legacy of Stepan Bandera drives the suppression of those who dare challenge the narrative of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict promulgated by the Ukrainian government, its Western allies and a compliant mainstream media. By Scott Ritter Special to Consortium News In May 1986 I rec

consortiumnews.com

SCOTT RITTER: Getting it Wrong on Ukraine

Newsweek's William Arkin is a prisoner of his sources, a problem that pervades Western reporting on the conflict in Ukraine. By Scott Ritter Special to Consortium News Six months into Russia’s “Special Military Operation,” fact-challenged reporting that constitutes Western media’s appro

consortiumnews.com

US Should Not Fund Ukrainian 'Blacklist'

Scott Ritter, a military analyst and CN contributor, was among those blacklisted by a Ukrainian government agency that appears to be funded by the United States. Ritter has written the following letter to his representatives in Congress. Senator Charles Schumer Leo W. O’Brien Federal

consortiumnews.com

 

[Gry]

https://en.12up.com/view/?id=escape-from-alcatraz-12u&src=outbrain&utm_source=outbrain&utm_medium=008c008cc87ed9fc05c2a00070d487ce57&utm_campaign=00a8aa29d91339fa6ca9b03c8922f59b22&utm_key=280&utm_content=00dc4ae6ac32995af3507f3f2b6ce40c96&utm_term=12U_D_US_escape-from-alcatraz-12u_shlomit_w_chrome_286941016_wcc_convworldclasscents&guid=v1-4cc8a0811a50c7302bed83ccb8616d2a-00a39547cdffe2de9150f8a6cf4b41df52-giztmojtmuzdallbmrrdiljuga2wgljyga2dkllchezdemjzge2tiodbha&omid=00a39547cdffe2de9150f8a6cf4b41df52&dicbo=v1-4cc8a0811a50c7302bed83ccb8616d2a-00a39547cdffe2de9150f8a6cf4b41df52-giztmojtmuzdallbmrrdiljuga2wgljyga2dkllchezdemjzge2tiodbha&page=11

 

[h.h.]

Scott Ritter’s Other War​

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/26/magazine/scott-ritter.html

 

[armedoldhippy]

One can not appease Nazis. In each and every case where it was attempted, it has always been an expensive and
embarrassing mistake, that is what our history taught me.

I think it likely that Zelensky was inserted into a situation from which there would be no positive resolution, I would
be amazed to see him survive this.
You asked what would I have expected of him. I would expect that he is going to be maintaining commitments,
and was of an impression that he would have made a great number of them to various people that affect his every decision.

The agency put a lot of effort into creating a permanent irritant for Russia on the border.
Flooding a retirement area for elder Russians, with Nazi skinheads was no ones finest move.
When this is over, the Nazi element are going to demand recognition and power.
In my minds ear I still hear GWB reassuring Russia that "we will never go an inch closer. "
Brighter minds than I have said this has potential to spin us into the third world war in an instant.

GWB said lots of shit. looking at the LAST president, no one in their right mind would expect a previous POTUS's "promises" to be upheld by later ones. i'm sure they will expect something for helping defend the country from a nuclear-armed neighbor run by a former KGB agent that wants to rebuild the Soviet Union. i'm also willing to bet that the rest of Europe do not look forward to that expansion if it comes about. i'm looking forward to seeing you post where i said you were using Russian propaganda. i'm trying to remember when it was that Ukraine attacked Russia. oh yes, NOW i remember! it must have been when Russia "annexed" the Crimean Peninsula. no, sorry. that too was a Russian attack on a neighbor. Russia is irritated & threatens EVERY nation on it's borders unless they fall in line & kiss the ring. no wonder The Chump admires Putrid so much! well, every neighbor except the one with nuclear weapons, China. Ukraine was attacked solely because Russia wanted more land, to become a "great nation again. did Ukraine piss them off? i'm sure of it...was part of that because they wanted help defending themselves from the assholes next door? you bet... who in their right mind wouldn't ? do you think that Russia is happy with how their "special military exercise" to protect Russian speaking retirees from the Nazis has worked out? or do they now wish they had told them to move back home if they wanted to be Russians? no, you CAN'T appease Nazis. but, you can't appease Russia either. the bear just gets hungrier if you feed it...

 

[Microbeman]

Zelensky makes peace with Nazi paramilitaries... "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" "you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had" the USA and other nations allied themselves with one of (if not THE) the worst monsters of the 20th century (perhaps all time) to save Europe (and possibly the world) from domination by Adolph Hitler's Third Reich. you have to use the tools in your tool box...or don't do the job. WTF did you expect him to do?

I agree with this and although it is difficult to choke down the propaganda promulgated from both sides (the tail wags the dog), the fact is that myriads of people lived peaceful lives which were destroyed by Russians. Dogs, wildlife, domesticated animals, vegetation, farms; destroyed by Russians; not by Ukrainians, by Russians. For this they derive no pity from me, just as similar American actions are evil.

The article above is stuffed with biased phrases just like all the bullshit from western media. I read a couple of articles by Ritter; same thing, some facts surrounded by opinionated fluff.

From a real person, no media,

"tonight a Russian rocket destroyed the house of my neighbors in Kyiv.
"We do not shoot at civilians!" - say the Russians.
Are you still saying "I'm not interested in politics" ?!
is it politics ???
The windows in my house were broken by the explosion.
I don't think I'll ever be able to go home.
Thank you Russia for freeing me from my home."

 

[Gry]

GWB said lots of shit. looking at the LAST president, no one in their right mind would expect a previous POTUS's "promises" to be upheld by later ones. i'm sure they will expect something for helping defend the country from a nuclear-armed neighbor run by a former KGB agent that wants to rebuild the Soviet Union. i'm also willing to bet that the rest of Europe do not look forward to that expansion if it comes about. i'm looking forward to seeing you post where i said you were using Russian propaganda. i'm trying to remember when it was that Ukraine attacked Russia. oh yes, NOW i remember! it must have been when Russia "annexed" the Crimean Peninsula. no, sorry. that too was a Russian attack on a neighbor. Russia is irritated & threatens EVERY nation on it's borders unless they fall in line & kiss the ring. no wonder The Chump admires Putrid so much! well, every neighbor except the one with nuclear weapons, China. Ukraine was attacked solely because Russia wanted more land, to become a "great nation again. did Ukraine piss them off? i'm sure of it...was part of that because they wanted help defending themselves from the assholes next door? you bet... who in their right mind wouldn't ? do you think that Russia is happy with how their "special military exercise" to protect Russian speaking retirees from the Nazis has worked out? or do they now wish they had told them to move back home if they wanted to be Russians? no, you CAN'T appease Nazis. but, you can't appease Russia either. the bear just gets hungrier if you feed it...

Would like to think we can agree our most recent former prez was an exception to the normal in a number of ways, most specifically, in that his word can not be taken for anything.
In the past, with the exception of Nixon, when one ran across a Presidential lie, one could take it as a given, there was likely a
reason behind it , and that it would be rare. Our recent past president that changed vastly.
You lost me completely with the respect to claims of using Russian Propaganda.
Was it I who say you had used Russian propaganda, or was it you who said I was doing so and where ?
The countries bordering on the former Soviet regime would have been working territory for any country that had an interest in
what was going on in Russia.
Many would have had personal there for generations, Which paid off many times over when the Soviet Union came apart.
The budget for Russia's military Budget was 65.9 billion. That would be for an entire calendar year. If I am not mistaken
we put 40 billion into a single wave. That we are aware of.
What I see is a yet another conflict where only a very few are going to profit, but many will suffer. That entire area has been a hotbed for all kinds of shitfucky since the end of WWIl.
Looking into comments made by Manafort's daughters about the shootings, makes for an interesting starting point.
I have tracked this stuff on the fringes for years here in this thread.
Have pictures of the "youth facility" in Wisconsin, complete with statues of their Heros of the Ukraine on the hillside.

I recall O'Bama speaking with the German's about buying LNG from us rather than buying Russian Nord stream gas which costs them less.
Then 45 spoke with the Germans over the same subject.
Recently Biden said the same thing.
What I see with the repetition, is we have four presidents in a row showing us this is yet another manipulated situation.