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It's Friday, September 13. Friday the 13th, for those of you who care.
Tonight: Hysteria over Russia and the supposed threat it poses to our way of life – the script Democrats invented in 2016 and then thereafter to explain their loss to Donald Trump –continues to fuel assaults on core civil liberties inside the United States. Ironically, it's not Russia, but the fear of it that is destroying our way of life.
We have frequently covered the case of the U.S.-based African People's Socialist Party, a very small party of leftists led by Black radicals, pretty standard ones, whose leaders are now in their 80s and have spent decades opposing American wars and imperialism and naturally therefore also oppose the NATO war in Ukraine. In late 2023, they were indicted on felony counts of acting as Russian agents, largely for the crime of speaking out and engaging in activism against U.S. involvement in the war in Ukraine because the FBI was able to find trivial, very trivial financial connections to Moscow a few thousand dollars over many years, they allege in an indictment that these Black leftists were acting as agents of Russia when opposing the war in Ukraine and criminally failed to disclose it. A jury in Tampa just yesterday acquitted all four of those defendants on the most serious count, namely that they acted as agents of the Russian government to spread propaganda inside the U.S. but it did convict them on four of the lesser charge of conspiring against the United States with Russia. So, it's a little bit of a confusing verdict, but we'll tell you all about the verdict and its implications.
Meanwhile, the State Department boasted today of its intense efforts to have RT, the state media outlet of Russia, banned in as many countries as they can, arguing that RT’s mere existence has had the effect of convincing people around the world to question and then oppose the need of the war in Ukraine – can't have that, can't have any information being disseminated that undercuts American and Western policy.
As always these days, whenever people start reaching conclusions the U.S. government dislikes, they immediately turn to the sources of that dissent and try to silence it. That's become the very normalized way of life now. Even during the Cold War, Americans frequently heard from Soviet leaders and Soviet news media such as Pravda. But in today's world, where values of free access to information and free speech are eroding, not even those minimal rights are guaranteed. The same ones we had during the Cold War.
Finally: last night, we covered the Biden administration's imminent decision to radically escalate the war in Ukraine by allowing long-range missiles provided to Ukraine by the U.S., by the UK and the EU, to be used to strike deep inside Russia. The Russian government's reaction was clear and predictable and swift because those missiles can only be fired, with native military officials guiding them by satellite, something the Ukrainians cannot do and because the missiles are coming from the UK, in the EU, with the specific intent of using them to strike inside Russia, Russia will regard any such usage as marking the entry of the U.S. and NATO's into this war as direct belligerence against Russia and will treat all of those countries as such.
My former Intercept colleague, Lee Fang, easily, in my view, one of the best and most intrepid investigative journalists in our country has been examining the very serious risks posed by such escalation in Ukraine. He just published on his Substack, earlier today, a new article entitled “New York Times’ Previous Reporting Undermines its War Escalation Journalism” - warnings about major escalation of war – and potential nuclear war – take a backseat to think tank experts from the defense industry.” We'll speak to Lee about all of that, about the general refusal of the West to even take seriously the threat of nuclear war, about another investigation he did last month on the much greater degree of Israeli influence inside the United States, people being paid by the Israeli government to spread Israeli propaganda and then various issues related to the 2024 election as well.
For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now.